Wordplay
by VelvetSoulPanda
Summary: On many occasions, Robin had been told he talked too much...and was a pain in the ass...and relentlessly restless. It was just part of his charm, and nobody denied that they loved him. Besides, if he didn't pester absolutely everyone he could, their lives would be so boring! One-shots centered around the world's most famous troll: the boy wonder!
1. Wordplay on Roy

A/n: The only ship to ship in the DC universe is DickxTrolling. It is nothing short of a OTP. And everyone can agree on it!

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**Wordplay**

_One - Wordplay: Roy_

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Robin was bored. Well, not so much bored, just exhausted while waiting for his turn to spar. Black Canary started up their training a half hour ago, and the boy wonder drew the short straw of fighting last. After the demonstrations of today's routines, Wally and Artemis had been the first pair up. Now, it was Kaldur and Conner. And since they were "playing fair", they were "evenly matched." Translation, they were "taking forever," quote puns intended. Robin had to sit back patiently and wait. The only problem was Robin was _terrible_ at staying put. The boy was all about action and movement: moving forward was basically the motto he lived by thanks to his acrobatic background in the circus. Right now he just looked like a poor imitation of KF trying to vibrate his molecules.

Patience was starting to drive him mad.

He needed a distraction.

**Recognized: Red Arrow, B-06.**

Fate was too kind sometimes.

The young hero whipped around and smirked at the red-head entering via the Zeta-tubes, suppressing the urge to do flips as he ran over to him. Judging by the scowl on his face and the grime on his crisp red clothes, Arrow was pissed...possibly with something that went wrong on a mission. "Red Arrow! What brings you here? It's not often that you come grace us with your awesome-ness." The boy snickered.

"Not in the mood to put up with you today, Robin." The elder teen retorted coldly. He didn't even spare a glance down to the bouncing acrobat beside him.

Robin frowned, but was determined. "Did something happen on a mission? Cause I can help. Heh, actually, I think you'll _need_ my help. You look completely disheveled. Usually you look heveled." When the hero saw that his elder wasn't going to stop stomping towards the computer mainframe, he resorted to childish antics. Robin knew for a fact that when his constant blabber-mouthing didn't get on Roy's nerves, his immaturity certainly did. Clutching the archer's wrist with both hands, Robin threw back all his weight until he was practically sitting on the floor and being dragged on his butt. "Reeeeeeed!"

"_What,_ Robin?!" Red Arrow shouted, stopping to glare down at the boy. By now, the duo had drawn the attention of the others in the room. Superboy and Aqualad cast them brief glances as their spar dragged on; and Canary and Red Tornado seemed to focus more intently than before on it, an effort to ignore Robin and Red Arrow. Artemis, M'gann, and Wally, on the other hand, were busy watching Robin behave like a six-year-old. While there was mild amusement in her eyes, Artemis was still a little concerned for Robin's well-being much like M'gann was. After all, while they didn't interact with Red Arrow often, they knew very well to _not_ get on the archer's bad side. Robin was, well, asking for trouble.

Wally simply watched on with a smirk while he ate up a sub-sandwich. He grew up as a sidekick with the two, so he knew what was coming next.

Robin grinned up at Red Arrow as if he weren't ticking him off in the least. "Spar with me!"

"No."

"But why?"

"Because, Robin, unlike the junior justice league, _I_ don't play pretend in the cave all day. I've got problems to handle."

"Why?"

"None of your business. Now if you'll excuse me, I need access to you database."

"Why?"

"Because I need-gah, what did I just say? _None of your business._"

"Why?"

"STOP WITH THE WHY!"

Robin snickered, his signature cackle-infused giggle, as he gave the redhead a crooked grin. "I'm just asking _why_ you can't stop for five minutes to fight me? Don't get so _froy_strated."

The archer narrowed his eyes, leaning down to leer at the little bird. "Then why the heck do you have to be so...wait, what did you say?"

Robin's grin widened, and a sinking feeling came to the red-head. This wasn't Robin sabotaging Red Arrow anymore, this was Dick annoying the crap out of Roy. He had a wave of nostalgia hit him from back when he, Wally, and Dick were younger and spent full days together while their mentors were out doing whatever business they had. He dreaded what he knew was coming. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wally smile. Somehow, the speedster caught on too.

"I'm just saying, I don't know why you're so ang_roy_ all the time."

"Don't start this," The elder teen seethed through his teeth to no avail. Robin simply cackled again.

"You see what I mean?" The boy wonder waved a hand at him as if he's pointing out something obvious, holding tighter to Roy's wrist."Every time you come over, you're always inf_roy_iated and stomp around in a huff-."

"Not the wordplay..." Roy grumbled.

"-And then when someone asks why you're all exaspe_roy_ted, you blow up! You know what I think you need?"

"Robin. Stop. Talking." The archer growled, now trying to shake the young protégé of the Batman off him. Robin was stuck to him like a fly on flypaper, jerking about every direction he tried to whip him off. By now Wally was openly laughing, which wasn't helping his cause, and he could hear Artemis and M'gann stifling giggles.

"I think that you need to app_roy_ch all this bad karma differently. Like sparring with me, to clear your mind! And then-."

"Rob!"

"We could get some f_roy_o, cause I'm kind of in the mood for some and you owe me."

Arrow lifted Robin up so that the boy was eye level with him, and conjured his most irritated glare possible. Robin seemed carefree, slightly swinging in his elder's hold as if he were on a jungle gym, smirking deviously, and clicking the steel-heels of his boots together in content. Glares never affected Robin; his mentor was the father of all glares. They remained in this peculiar stare-down for the entirety of ten seconds before, of course, Robin broke it.

"Y'know what I just thought of?!" He asked suddenly with a gasp. He could tell that, behind the domino mask, Roy raised an eyebrow. "The perfect name for a spoof TV show for you!"

"Enlighten me." The blue-eyed redhead replied sarcastically.

"Ok, ok, ok, you ready for this?! That's. So. _Roy_ven."

Roy's glare hardened so much if felt like the room could've dropped a few degrees in temperature. Robin, however, was immune. Then, the archer smirked with a sudden change of thought. "Y'know something? You're right. Maybe kicking your butt into tomorrow _will_ help me relax."

"You mean help you _roy_lax."

Roy's face dropped, and with it he dropped Robin on the ground, carelessly. "Center ring, boy _blunder_. You'll regret ever making puns out of my name."

Grinning triumphantly, Robin rolled up to his feet and cartwheeled over to the sparring platform with enthusiasm. He'd gotten his spar with his 'big brother', exactly how he wanted. He just had to trick Roy into wanting it. It was a good thing that task was simple to pull off for the trickster.

"I can't help it, you just make it _roy_lly easy."

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A/n: Review please!

Next chapter (vote):  
**A.** Unintentionally humiliating daddybats in public  
**B.** Meeting the League  
**C.** wordplay (surprise word)


	2. Questions for Bruce

A/n: As if it wasn't obvious from the get-go, option A won by a landslide.

So many reviews, alerts, and story favorites from chapter one alone! I'm whelmed beyond belief.

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**Wordplay**

_Two - Questions for Bruce_

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Bruce Wayne was a man with a brilliant mind. Naturally, he enjoyed the company of other brilliant minds, but more importantly he enjoyed it when said company was also equally curious to learn. After all, there is no such this as having learned enough and the world is evolving everyday.

When the playboy billionaire adopted young Richard Grayson as his ward, he knew the child was bright right from the start. However, in a short amount of time, he found himself pleasantly surprised time and time again with the child's intelligence. How couldn't he be? Based on nothing but a few common gestures of habit, the young acrobat was able to unravel his vigilante alter-ego. Bear in mind that was after meeting both Bruce Wayne and Batman only _once_. And let's not forget that within a month of living in the mansion he found the Bat-cave all on his own. Then he openly, and _enthusiastically_, embraced a will to adopt the vigilante nightlife by his side...He never admitted it aloud, but secretly Bruce was thrilled to find that Dick was an active learner. Somehow, it made everything so much easier for the man who felt like he was such an awkward and terrible parental figure. Whenever he felt like he made two wrongs, Dick would prove him otherwise with an unexpected right. He deduced, after a year with his "ward" (now much more appropriately dubbed son), that this was how parents must feel.

However...there were some days and there were some occasions where Dick mentally exhausted him. Dick was...what was the best way to phrase this...Dick was..._too_ eager to question and learn sometimes? And it was literally impossible for him to sit still. And he, for the life of him, could _not stop talking_. Each trait of the baby bird were difficult enough to handle individually.

But when they combined?

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Eight-year-old Richard Grayson was all abuzz with excitement. It was his first time accompanying Bruce to work. He'd never been to Wayne Tower before, never even driven close enough to it to take in its full grandeur. The child with a big imagination didn't think he'd be coming to his new father's workplace so soon. Sure, it was almost a year since the billionaire had adopted him, but for some reason he imagined that this moment would take longer to come. He supposed that if anything, he had to thank the snowstorm that pelted down on Gotham the previous evening. Because of it, Alfred's chores around the manor doubled, and he had no time to keep tabs on the little boy. Bruce normally would've stayed in and worked from his office (making the trip into the city after snowfall was _hell_ and the Gothamite tried avoiding it when he could), however, he had a board meeting he couldn't afford to miss with potential partner consolidations that flew in from the other side of the country.

Dick was heart-broken to say the least. He'd been wishing for snow since November came rolling in. He couldn't wait to play in the seemingly infinite acres of the manor and make snowmen and forts, tumble in the snow; he'd even gone out with Alfred to buy snow gear and a sled. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case...

...At least not until he returned home with Bruce, who promised that if Dick could behave himself at the office, he would teach him the fine art of creating the perfect snowball.

They drove to work sans the company of their favorite butler in the Rolls-Royce, pulling up at the front entrance. Bruce stepped out first, handing the keys to one of the employees that already stood waiting for him, then walked around the car to open the door for his son. He was taken by surprise when the child launched himself from the seat directly into his arms, and allowed himself a chuckle and grin.

"Now Dick, remember our agreement?" The man's deep voice rumbled in his chest, making the child's ear tickle as he rested his head there. Bruce didn't know if Dick had this habit before he took him in or not, but he noticed the child loved listening to heartbeats when he hugged someone. He preferred to just enjoy it and not think too much into it. He set the little acrobat down as they waited for the elevator, smoothing down the lapels of his winter coat.

Dick's eyes were sparkling with a twinkle of enthusiasm. He nodded fervently. "No jumping and climbing on anything."

"Well, er, yes, that as well, but...?"

The child's smile brightened; he was bouncing on his feet and didn't even realize it. "Remember my manners, no silly questions, and behave extra-good when I need to quiet." He recited. The elevator opened, and the Dick ran to the control panel to hit the button of the floor his father's office was located on. He had to jump to reach it. "Bruce, Bruce, Bruce! After we make snowballs and igloos and snowman and snow angels and—!"

"Breathe, chum."

"Can we have hot chocolate with the _big_ marshmallows that leave sticky mustaches?! And Alfred's cookies?!"

The man smirked, "I don't see why not."

Dick's smiled evolved into a full-on wide, toothy smile. "Can _we_ make it?!"

"No."

Getting to the office literally took the pair twenty minutes. Bruce's employees were enamored by the child that radiated with good vibes. He immediately suspected they were sucking up to the boy. Because, well, let's be honest, Dick _was_ his son: what half-intelligent man _wouldn't_ suck up to the boss' son to earn a few brownie points? However, he saw that they truly took a liking to Dick. He wasn't surprised. Really, who wouldn't like Dick? Dick may as well be the human embodiment of happiness, idealism, and optimism. Quite ironic that _Bruce_ of all people adopted him...

Having Dick settled in took _another_ twenty minutes. Between sifting through his files to get the right documents for the meeting and prepping himself for the droning voices of his co-workers, Bruce had to break the news to Dick that the little boy could not, in fact, stay in the conference room with him during the meeting. Saying all this only took five minutes. Getting Dick to stop crying was what took another fifteen minutes. He finally got the little acrobat's tears to quell by making another agreement with the little boy.

Outside his office, none of the employees questioned the odd sight that was _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_ playing on the flat screen in Mr. Wayne's office.

Leaving Dick content with his snacks and ninja turtles (he asked his secretary to keep an eye on him; the man could handle taking notes of the meeting by himself), Bruce went to the meeting, where everyone was already waiting. He suppressed the urge to sigh when he realized that this meeting was going to take longer than he liked. Could these people _ever_ come to an easy agreement?

An hour passed, and his suspicion was confirmed. No they couldn't.

A knock from the door interrupted the bickering businessmen present. None of them needed acute hearing to hear the scuffling feet behind the door. The tinted glass door swung open without a sound, allowing a tiny boy to come darting in from behind it. Sheepishly peering in after him was Bruce's secretary. The blonde woman clutched her clipboard with such nervousness that her knuckles were white. Dick ran straight for Bruce and clung to his father's strong arm, hiding his face.

"M-Mr. Wayne sir, R-Richard want to, u-uhm, see you." The lithe woman explained, trying hard not to stumble over her words. "I tried to get him to stay—."

"It's alright, Miranda, I'll handle it." He told her with a nod, turning his attention to Dick. He lifted the boy's little face up by his chin, brushing loose strands of the unruly black hair back with the rest of his coiffed hair. Dick hastily tried to wipe away tears before they could spill and Bruce could notice. He only accomplished one of the two. The look in the little acrobat's watery blue eyes told him enough. Dick was lonely. He didn't handle solitude well for long periods of time.

"Mr. Wayne, would you like me to take him back?"

The panic that flashed through Dick's eyes made Bruce choose otherwise. Wordlessly, and much to Dick's surprise, he lifted the boy off the ground and sat him on his lap at the table. He gave the child the pen and notebook he was 'taking notes' with to doodle on. It was blank save for a few test scribbles on the corners of the sheet. Bruce was more of a mental notes person. "No, Miranda, I'll keep Dick here with me. You can go ahead and get started on the updating this week's paperwork into the system files. Thank you." The secretary left, and the room was silent. The board members and businessmen stared nervously at Bruce and the oblivious child on his lap drawing ninja turtles and making sound effects of the fight as his imagination soared. "You were speaking of a new site proposition?" Bruce prompted, urging the men to continue. He just wanted to get this finished fast to take his boy home for the promised afternoon of fun in the snow.

"O-oh, yes, well," The lanky man running the Power-point said, swallowing dry. Bruce smirked to himself. They were intimidated by Dick's presence. Hopefully this meant that they wouldn't argue anymore, and they could be out of here within the hour. Why hadn't he thought of bringing Dick in before?

The lights dimmed momentarily and the projector above the table lit up, creating a 3-D hologram image of the project. The man went on to explain multiple points of interest in opening a branch of Wayne Enterprises in Turkey. No one, not even Bruce, noticed that Dick's attention had long left the his doodles and were focused on the big words and logic of the meeting that didn't make sense to him, but interested him nonetheless. Once the entire plan was explained, a board member opposed.

"I'm not so sure it's in our best interests. Wayne Tech has a base of operations in Dubai, I see no necessity in having another building made just four countries away."

Another threw in his comments, "But he _does_ make a good point with shipment. Cargo leaving harbors in the Mediterranean is in our best interests to improve delivery to our customers."

"We have no issues with shipping from Dubai, nor has delivery ever been an issue."

"But it _can_ improve, which would draw in more customers. All it would take is a budget increase—."

"Why waste money on a budget increase as inane as that when it could be better spent elsewhere? Money doesn't grow on trees!"

And just like that, the board members were bickering again. This time, Bruce didn't bother trying to mask a sigh that slipped through his teeth. With the hand that was holding Dick's middle, keeping the boy still in his lap, the man rubbed his temples. Oh, how he loathed board meetings.

"Money doesn't grow on trees?" Dick's innocent voice piped up, snapping the men and women out of their heated debates, to look at him. His brow was stitched together in confusion, his cheeks puffed and lower lip pouting in his adorable and signature 'thinking hard' face. "But...isn't money paper?"

A stout man with a balding head replied, "Er, yes it is."

"Isn't paper made from trees?"

"...Yes." The same man answered.

"Then money _does_ grow on trees?"

This time, a woman with her hair up in bun answered with a little chuckle, "Well, when you put it that way, technically yes."

Dick looked even more confused. Bruce smirked, patting his ward's shoulder. "It's an expression, Dick. It means that money isn't something you frivolously waste."

The cloud of confusion didn't lift from the child's galaxy-blue eyes. "But banks have branches. That lady just said so. If money doesn't grow on trees, why do banks have branches? Are banks trees?"

Bruce's expression hardened slightly in thought, a habit he exposed more as his civilian-self. Dick watched him with wide-eyed wonder, curious for an answer. The child was like a sponge, soaking up anything and everything he could learn. "It's another expression. When a bank has branches—just like a business or different specialties of a similar topic—it means that it has different areas pertaining to the same source. For example, the medical field has many areas of focused abilities, such as cardiology and pathology."

Dick nodded slowly, looking straight up at his father from under the man's chin. "Like Wayne Tech?"

"Just like Wayne Tech," The man inwardly grinned in pride, "Now let us fini—."

"I have another question. Why did you," The child gestured to the board members as a whole, "call the shipments 'cargo'?"

As much as Bruce was glad to see his son's mind was tinkering, he wanted to get this meeting over with. "That is what product that is being moved from one set location to its delivery point is called. Dick—."

"But it's on a ship."

"Yes, now if you'd—."

"Then it should be called a shipment."

"No, that is when you're moving product on land. By sea it's called cargo."

Dick's confused pout was back on his face, and he waved around his hands as he heatedly debated his perplexion. He completely forgot that he was still holding a pen and notebook in hand; he came close to hitting the nearest board members a few times as well as Bruce. "But that doesn't make sense! If you move the boxes on a ship it should be shipment, cause it's on a boat! The word says **ship**ment! And if it's on the ground in cars and trucks it should be called **car**go!" He stopped for a split second, "Or is it **truck**go for trucks?"

"Because it..." Bruce momentarily faltered. He forgot to remind himself not to think too much into Dick's ramblings. Since English is the boy's second language, and he and Alfred (mostly Alfred) gave him an intense crash-course on the language after adopting him, the child developed a knack for breaking down the written language's odd ends.

Dick was growing anxious that he didn't get an answer. He came to rely on his beloved adopted father for all the questions he couldn't find answers to. Bruce knew _everything_. Bruce became a little hot and nervous under the collar; Dick unintentionally (unknowingly) put his parenting on the spot for all his associates to see. He couldn't just brush the boy's question off. He had to think fast.

"Because...way back in colonial times, the only way of transporting anything on land was if it was on a horse-drawn carriage." He fibbed. "So they created the word cargo from 'carriage' and 'go', to shorten the phrase "going by carriage". They didn't find a good reason to change the name for overseas product, so they kept it."

Dick was buying his story word for word, staring at his daddy in awe. "They should've changed it so I'm not confused." A few of the board members chuckled at this, and it was then Bruce saw how they were poorly concealing their amusement. It wasn't everyday you saw the famous Bruce Wayne coming up with on-the-spot stories for children.

"Yes, they should've," Bruce agreed. "Hundreds of years later, when the first steam engine was invented and later the automobile, the speed of land transportation was _so_ fast and revolutionary that the slang term they created for transporting product was shipment." Before Dick could ask why, Bruce continued, "It was used to mock how slow sending something overseas was in comparison to sending it by land."

"Wooooooow." Dick was amazed. "I get it now!"

Bruce was relieved. "Good. Now if you're all set, you can sit quietly and let us continue." The boy nodded vehemently, his black hair slightly falling out of place, and began madly doodling cars and boats on his notepad. The meeting went on without a hitch for a total of six minutes before Dick interrupted again. He had a bit of a "verbal vomit" issue. It was one of the most difficult things to discipline in his training when they both donned their costumes back home.

"Bruce, why is it called a building if it's already built?"

Unfortunately for Bruce, he had to accept humiliation and defeat with this question. He had _no idea_ how to answer this one.

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A/n: A part two of this will come, but instead Bruce will get to go through the humiliation as the Dark Knight...

Review please! How did daddy Bruce handle public parenting?

Next chapter (vote):  
**A.** Meeting the League  
**B.** Wordplay


	3. Meeting the League

A/n: As if it wasn't obvious from the get-go, option A won by a landslide.

Young Justice is finally airing again! WOOT!

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**Wordplay**

_Three - Meeting the League_

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Batman hated this. No, not hate..._despise_ was a better term to fit his feelings. Yes. Batman _despised_ this.

_"Batman, did you-?"_

"I got the memo, Kent, I'm on my way." The knight hissed back into the comm built into the ears of his cowl. He held the slumbering form that was Robin closer to his chest. Clearing the excess pillows from the couch, he gently lay the little boy down. He placed the softest of the pillows under his head, and thanks to paranoia he lined the floor with the other pillows. Dick wasn't one to thrash around in his sleep, but it didn't mean that it didn't happen. He wouldn't take chances if the child were to roll and fall on the floor. Then, he unfastened his cape and tucked the little boy in. He placed a domino mask on the table directly in front of him, the boy wonder in training's utility belt that he'd removed earlier in their car ride, and a cell phone for Dick to reach him should he awaken before his return.

The Bat lingered a moment longer, patting the child's mop of black hair and brushing the mess of bangs out of his face. At the gesture, Dick sighed peacefully in his sleep, snuggling into his touch. Batman didn't want to leave his son alone, in the Watchtower of all places, while he had to go aid the League in a mission that was spiraling out of control. Yet he had no other choice: Alfred was doing him the favor of taking care of a simple Wayne Tech affair for him while on a trip to England, and there was nobody else the vigilante knew (much less trusted) with his baby bird.

The Watchtower it was...

...Still didn't appeal to him.

"I'll be back soon," He quietly promised. He ruffled his son's hair one last time and put the stuffed elephant in the boy's arms before quietly slipping out of his room at the tower and shutting the door behind him. He left it unlocked, should the worse or unexpected happen. He'd sacrifice his privacy for his son's well-being any day. He wasn't too worried about that. He just prayed that Dick would stay asleep until his return. His fellow colleagues in crime-fighting didn't exactly know that his newly adopted son was introduced into the hero-life.

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Dick awoke in a large room that was completely foreign to him. He stirred gradually, his galaxy-blue eyes thick with sleep lazily gazing about as he sat up. He wrapped the cape he recognized to be Batman's more tightly around his tiny frame, snuggling into the heavy fabric. He most certainly wasn't in the Bat-cave, or at home, or any of the Bat-bunkers of Gotham. This place was entirely different. His first reaction was to let fear settle inside him, but objects around the room coaxed him into familiarity. For starters, the room's color-scheme was the Dark Knight's favorite: blacks and grays. There was a large computer cast to the far right wall in sleep mode with a blinking bat-symbol on the monitor. To the left, a bed that looked like it was never used. On the table in front of him was a domino mask, his utility belt, and a cell phone his father issued to him when they were apart. On the floor, he noticed, he dropped his beloved stuffed elephant.

The little boy pick up Zitzka and took the phone. Typing in his name—Robin— for the pass-code, a voice message was there. Only two people on the planet knew the number to this phone, so Dick had a good hunch as to who left the message. He was right, of course: it was Batman. His father was clear with his orders: he had to go help the League, and it was too dangerous a situation to bring Robin along. He assured the little boy he was safe, but requested that he stay in the bedroom until his return. Should any emergency occur, that Robin should not hesitate to activate his emergency beacon. And lastly, that if anyone were to run into him or vice-versa, that he wear the mask. A superhero must never reveal his identity.

Perfect. This left the little bird with Gods-knows how much time to kill before his father's return. He really wanted to explore, but if he did Batman would be mad. Bruce would probably be even angrier. With a pout on his lip, Dick let out a grumpy sigh. He put the phone safely away in one of the pockets of his utility belt and fastened the belt back on over his bright red vest. As least he was comfy. Somewhere between falling asleep on the ride home from patrol-watch (in the Bat-mobile no less) and waking up here, he was mostly changed out of his hero uniform and into his favorite pajamas: a navy-blue footie-onesie littered with tiny superman symbols all over it. Rubbing his eyes to be more alert, Dick tied the black cape around his neck and snapped his domino mask on Zitzka's face.

"Let's play superhero, Zitzka!" He suggested to the blue-gray elephant. "I'll be Batman and you be Robin!"

Given his attention span, age, and fear of solitude, Dick remained a remarkably long time well in the room, playing pretend with the stuffed elephant he owned for as long as he could remember. The little boy burned through a few different play scenarios and games. He ended up snooping around in the drawers of Batman's desk and found a few cool gadgets he'd never seen before. He also impressed himself by figuring out the password to the computer and logging into it just to listen to the soundtrack of his latest favorite movie on _Youtube_. No matter what piece of technology it was, if a pass-code could be installed in it, Batman changed it every day. Guaranteed. That's why he was so proud of himself.

However, minutes turned into half-hours, and soon half-hours turned into two hours, and still no Batman had shown up. Now the little boy had a serious problem.

He had to use the bathroom.

His latest game of pretend was momentarily forgotten. If he were honest, he technically had to use it from the time he woke up. But Dick decided to hold it in until Batman came back because, A, he was told to, and B, Batman never left him for long. But now, as he checked one of two doors the room had only to find it to be an empty closet, he started to panic.

"Mmrg, Zitzka," He whined with a frown, "I have to go potty. What do I do?" He complained. His fingers itched to reach for the cell phone, but he stopped. Batman specifically said only to use the phone for emergencies. He didn't want to interrupt his mentor and potentially get him in harm's way for distracting him. Yet...didn't Alfred once refer to urges to use the bathroom as emergencies? What kind of emergency was his daddy talking about? The Robin kind or the Dick kind? Technically it was both him under the mask, so does it count? Did superheroes have bathroom emergencies too?

The rules of the double-life concept confused the young acrobat almost as much as the English language did sometimes.

"Zitzka, if I go, will you promise not to tell Batman?" He asked the elephant. He stopped talking when he heard voices outside.

"He-ey, Hal! Just the guy I'm—! What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?"

"Shh!" The second voice said, certainly much closer to the door. "Just be quiet and come over here."

"Uh-oh." Dick swallowed, "Zitzka, hide!" He scrambled to toss the things he scattered—mostly pillows and a few bat-a-rangs— under the couch or bed to hide them.

"Is that what I think it sounds like?"

"Dunno, but it's definitely not normal...Haha, you think Bats was shot with some sort of shrink-ray...?"

Dick gasped aloud in panic. His daddy was hurt?

"Hal, wait, let's think about this for a minute."

"Ollie, if we _don't_ go in there and Batty _is_ a ten-year-old in an over-sized bat-suit, we'll be missing out on the blackmail of a lifetime!"

Dick didn't have time to think or react. The doorknob twisted and the clicks of the tumble echoed in the room. He snatched his domino mask and, out of instinct, somersaulted over the couch and dove under the desk, concealing himself in the shadows. From where he hid, he could see that two supers entered the room. It was Green Lantern and Green Arrow, They sidestepped most of his mess, making hushed comments to each other about what they saw. "Batman? You in here?" The Lantern called out.

Arrow squinted curiously around. "What the heck happened in here...?" He stopped, kneeling to the ground, and picking up a stuffed elephant. Robin's eyes widened behind the mask. He covered his mouth with both his little hands to keep from shouting out.

"No way!" Green Lantern cackled. "Gimme that! What'd I tell you, man? Blackmail!" He sang, trying to rip the plush doll away from his partner in crime-fighting.

"Zitzka!" The little boy jolted when he saw the poor treatment of his stuffed animal, immediately regretting it. So much for stealthy. To Green Arrow and Lantern, the child most definitely came as a surprise; Robin currently resembled a deer caught in headlights. Neither of them knew what to do. Hal started to walk towards the child, but he only recoiled into his hiding place under the desk. Arrow held his arm out to stop him. The blonde man knelt, holding out the stuffed animal in his hand.

"Hey there." He greeted gently. "Is this yours?" Dick nodded shyly. The archer offered him a friendly smile. "Here you go; you can have him back." Slowly, Dick emerged from under the desk, using the scattered pillows on the ground as stepping-stones towards the two heroes. Because of his small size, he looked to be no older than six or seven to the two men clad in green. Once face to face with Green Arrow, Dick took the stuffed animal back and hugged her tightly to his chest. "What's your na—?"

"Zitzka is a girl." He corrected the man, his voice surprisingly bold for a child that, on the outside, seemed frightened.

"Right. Uhm...sorry?" Green Arrow apologized as he, much like his best friend, inspected this odd little boy that somehow got into the Watchtower wearing a peculiar wardrobe of Superman footie-pajamas and a bright-red bulletproof vest. The utility belt was more than familiar in design. Dick looked down at the floor and yelped.

"Watch out!" He cried out in alarm, seizing Arrow's wrist and yanking him forward with as much strength as he could. It didn't do much, just knock the man off-balance for a moment. "You're stepping on the lava!"

"The...lava?" Hal questioned in confusion.

Dick nodded fervently. "The lava! The volcano es'ploded! Scorponok went in the ground and up to the volcano and fired rockets inside it, then it went _BOOM_ and the lava's everywhere!" The little boy ranted, barely pausing to breathe. "Pretender was pretending to be a good guy but she was a bad guy! She tried to kill me! But Zitzka stopped her! And then Bumblebee came and we went to find Ironhide but ev'rybody was fighting and D'mol'sher is gonna kill the president!" By the end of his story (that made much more sense in the eight-year-old's wild imagination than it did in Hal or Oliver's) the two men were more confused than ever.

"Slow down, kid; what are you talking about? Who's after the president?" The blonde billionaire asked the bouncing child. "And what's a Demolisher?"

"No, no, no, we have to help them now!" Dick shook his head with determination. He ran to the couch and folded up Batman's cape to the best of his ability, tucking it between his hip and his utility belt. "C'mon! We have to get to the all-spark to Optimus before Megatron takes over the world!" He ran past the two men, snatching Zitzka up upon his exit, and yelling as he went out the door: "BUMBLEBEE!" As the child ran down the hall, he could be heard making the sounds a speeding car would make.

"Wait, kid, get back here!" Oliver called out, the two chasing after him. "What is he going on about?"

Hal kept pace at his side; they caught a glimpse of the little boy making a hard right turn down the hall. "He could be speaking in code, but I'm pretty sure he was talking about _Transformers_. Y'know the kids show they made into a movie: the one with the alien robots that turn into different cars?" Then he added, "My question is how'd he get in here? And in _Batman's_ room? You don't suppose he broke in, do you?"

"Don't know, but we can't be too careful. He doesn't seem like a threat. Certainly doesn't look like one. Maybe he snuck in with one of us without our knowing?"

"And bypassed _all_ security? Nuh-uh. Something's up. We need to catch him." If only the two knew how difficult it was to catch Dick. For starters, actually catching up to the child in the halls took longer than they expected. Oliver fired a net arrow at the child, but he seemed to sense it and effortlessly dodge by... "Dude, did he just _back-flip_ over your net arrow?"

"Don't just stand there, help!"

Hal used the power of the ring to create multiple hands that tried to grab at Dick. Each one that made a lunge at him, the acrobat leaped over or under, somersaulting and flipping and spinning out of their reach. He climbed his way up on the hands, then jumped. Drawing a ninja-disc from his utility belt, the little boy whipped it at the air vent he dove towards. The disc detonated upon contact, and he vanished inside the air ducts.

His head popped out, black bangs a mess on his forehead. "Traitors! You're working with the Decepticons!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down! Come down here, let's talk!" Green Arrow tried to reason with him.

"Never! That's what Laserbeak said, and then he threw Mr. Wang out the window! You can't fool Sam Wika-wikity! I saved the world two times!"

"Sam?" Hal echoed, rolling his eyes behind his mask. "Oh, please. We're not-!"

"Kiss my Autobot butt!" He cried, tossing a handful of marbles in the air that exploded into a smoke screen. "Run Zitzka! We have to get to Bumblebee again to find Optimus...!"

"Oliver!" Hal coughed on the smoked that began to clear out after a few minutes.

"I know; I'm sounding an alert!" The man called back, going to a communicator panel on the wall. He patched through to Martian Manhunter in the central hub. "J'onn, activate the alarm. There's an intruder in the tower. Get the motion sensor feed up; he's in the air vents."

Elsewhere, Dick crawled aimlessly through the vents until he hit a rusty opening and fell through. As convenience would have it, he landed in a bathroom. He suddenly remembered his urge to go potty and ran into a stall. After having gone, he flipped up on the counter and washed his hands in the sink, then walked out with a happy sigh into a locker room.

The women's locker room.

"CARLY!" He squealed in delight, running straight to an unsuspecting Black Canary that had just finished changing. The woman turned—she was standing just outside the doorway leaving the locker room—and caught the child that soared into her arms with nothing short of shock. "You're okay!"

"I'm not Carly." The lithe blonde woman replied, pulling back slightly from the ebony-haired boy's warm hug to get a good look at him. "Where did you come from?"

"The air vent." Dick answered airily and pointing to the broken vent, distracted with running his fingers through her hair. "You're pretty like Carly. You're _prettier_." A flashing red light went off around them as well as a buzzing alarm. Black Canary tensed, securing her hold on the little boy. She knew what this alarm meant. Dick also gasped. "Oh no, they're coming! Carly, run!"

Canary turned her alarmed confusion to the adorable little boy in her arms. "Who's coming?"

"Dev'stator, D'mol'sher; ev'ryone! They want the all-spark for go-bal do-nim-ma-ni-nation!" He waved the hand that held Zitzka, pointing down the hall. "We have to get to the tomb of the primes before they activate the pyramid canon!"

"Sweetheart, you're cute, but I have no idea what you're saying. I need to get to the command center, and you're coming with me. I'll figure out why you're here after."

"Carly, we should go in Bumblebee."

"In what?"

"You have pretty legs like Carly does. You have a pretty butt like her too."

"I—_what_?"

The pair ran to the central command of the Watchtower. Dick complemented Dinah on her looks the entire way and babbled on about how his daddy liked a pretty lady with blue eyes like hers, but she had long black hair. There, they found the League Members that were present at the tower: Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. They all turned to the blonde crime-fighter than entered, and Green Arrow pointed an accusing finger at Dick.

"That's the intruder! The kid we found snooping around in Batman's room; Dinah, you caught him!"

"Carly, look out!" The acrobat in pajamas squirmed his way out of Black Canary's arms, landing and standing defensively in front of her. "They betrayed us! They work for the Decepticons, just like Sentinel!"

"Dinah, careful with him! That no ordinary kid, he's trained in combat!" Green Arrow heeded, making towards his girlfriend. Dick gave him his fiercest glare that he liked to call his Robin glare. Green Arrow stopped in his tracks. Why was that glare so familiar...?

"Stay away from Carly, Decepticon! She's _my_ girlfriend!" Green Arrow let out a strangled noise of confusion and outrage, and Dick, now in Robin mode, whipped his stuffed elephant in the man's face. Hard. The blond archer cried out in surprise and pain. "Carly, I'll distract the Decepticons! You take the president to safety! Optimus will come, I know it!" He turned, pulled the woman down by her wrist, and kissed her cheek. "You're the prettiest not-Carly Carly ever, Carly!" Robin jumped into the fray, firing bat-a-rangs and mini boomers and other weapons at the League members, who scrambled to try to pin the child down. It was complete chaos. Flash ran into Green Lantern; Green Arrow nearly fired at Martian Manhunter and Black Canary; and on multiple occasions Hawkman and Hawkgirl's mace came dangerously close to hitting the tiny acrobat. The brawl came to an abrupt halt when, through joint efforts of distraction, Green Lantern tripped Robin mid-flip. The child spun out of balance and fell on the ground with a loud thud.

The room was dead silent. Nobody dared to move. They held their breath and waited to see what would happen. After a beat, Robin reached his hands for his head and curled himself into a ball.

He started to cry.

The first to react and run to the little boy's aid was Dinah, with Shayera and J'onn right behind her, and the others after that. She picked up the little boy and helped him sit up; he was holding his head in pain, streams of tears cascading down his face. Somehow he'd lost his domino mask during the fight. "Sweetheart, are you OK?" Dinah tried to get him to speak, but he just wailed louder with eyes screwed shut.

Shayera turned on Green Lantern, glaring at him. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"Me? As I recall _you_ and Hawkman were trying to hit him with your _giant electrified mace_!"

**Recognized: Batman, 0-2.**

"Robin!"

The team members present barely had time to acknowledge the Dark Knight's arrival. The man ran to the little black-haired boy they stood around, pushing some of his fellow colleagues out of the way to get to him. Kneeling down before Robin, he picked up the child that wasted no time scrambling into his strong arms and burying his face in his chest. The dark knight didn't even have to ask what happened. In a blubbering mix of English and Romani, Robin explained as much as he could of his adventure through his tears. His story was brief because of how much his head hurt.

"Batman, do you know who this child is?" J'onn inquired. Batman looked up at the team, giving them the most terrifying bat-glare they'd ever seen. Like the adults they all were, each and every one of them turned to look a different way. Flash pointed an accusing finger at Green Lantern.

"His name is Robin." He said to them coldly, removing his cape from the boy's belt and wrapping it around his shoulders as he had hours earlier. Robin snuggled into it and his father's chest, wiping tears away from his rosy cheeks and eyes that everyone could now see. They were the most unusual, vibrant blue they'd ever seen. "He's my son." Flash choked on air while the others just stared with their jaws dropping in shock. "And _you_ attacked him."

"...We thought he broke in." Green Arrow admitted. Batman's glare narrowed; Robin's whimpers were the only thing that kept him from making a move.

"I am going to take him to the medical bay. If he has a concussion or so much as a _single_ scratch on him," He began, watching as they all visibly cringed in front of him. He decided to leave the threat up in the air and walk out with his son to the medical bay, quelling his sobs in the boy's native tongue. The team shuddered.

"Oh, man. Oh man oh man ohmanohmanohmanohman—." Flash repeated in super speed, about to start pacing, when Aquaman gave him a light bump to stop. "We're all _so_ dead."

Thankfully, Robin didn't have any injuries. The concussion, however, he did. After confirming this, Batman treated his young protégé to some ice cream and left the child eating while he confronted the League members about Robin just outside the room. He didn't answer many questions; he was eager to get his son home. Before leaving, he allowed the team to formerly, and properly, meet Robin. They apologized to him, returning his stuffed elephant, and the child forgave them: only if they promised to help him and the Autobots save the world. They did, saying that next time he came to visit—or if they ever had to watch him—that they'd certainly help.

Batman doubted it would ever happen. After tonight, he lost all faith in leaving his beloved little bird in the care of any League member.

...Not that he had any to begin with.

He also made a mental note to teach Robin how to deactivate motion sensors from any location ever. It may just come in handy one day.

* * *

A/n: Spoiler: Robin will most definitely have some quality playtime with League members in future chapters. As well as other mishaps. You may have noticed Wonder Woman and Superman were not featured. I have special ideas for how Dick meets them in mind; they'll be two independent chapters on their own. Dick loves Transformers, can you tell?

You like that little bit of continuity I threw in there? With the motion sensors? Haaaaa I'm not funny xDx

Next chapter: wordplay with...someone on the YJ team! Stay tuned!

Reviews make the world go round. (...not really. But they make updates happen.)


	4. Wordplay on Wally

A/n: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! You guys make me smile and think that I'm not crazy for thinking about my favorite fictional characters in different scenarios on a daily basis. We're all normal here :D

A few of you have spotted/pointed out that, in a sense, Dick has played with words and questioning their meaning in every chapter. Congratulations, you've deciphered the entire goal of this story. My mission is being accomplished.

I'd like cookies as a reward. I'll share. Promise.

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Four - Wordplay on Wally_

* * *

As far as Wally was concerned, years of friendship and the bro-code meant that he should be spared from Robin's constant pranks and jokes. Apparently, Robin didn't get the memo.

The team was assigned a mission by Batman: stealth and reconnaissance to discover the dealer and buyer of a black market weapons trade. It was starting to create a little trouble and rep, so the League wanted it snuffed out and put out of business. So here they sat in the Bio-ship, focused on their tasks and watching the clouds and night sky fly by them outside. They all enjoyed the mutual silence.

Well..._almost_ mutual silence.

Behind Wally, Robin sat muttering and grumbling under his breath. The constant clicks and pings and taps told the speedster clad in red and yellow that his friend was messing around with the holographic computer installed in his gauntlet. He didn't sound too happy about it. For the most part, the team ignored it, and so did Wally, until the youngest member decided to slam his fist down loudly on the console. That jolted everyone in surprise. The redhead spun around in his seat, raising a brow at his best friend. "Dude, you OK?" He noticed Robin's scowl.

"No." The bird moodily replied, splitting the single screen of his computer into three smaller ones. "Stupid Bats and his stupid upgrades...would it kill him to warn me when he does this?" He complained to himself, even though they all heard.

Wally smirked at his friend's despair. "New tech?"

"Tch, yeah, couldn't you tell?" Robin snapped back, a tiny compartment of his glove snapping open. He blinked curiously at it, picking up what looked to be like a small comm. "What the heck is this thing?" He brought it close to his face, turning it around in his fingers, and read the flashing yellow box on one of the monitor screens. "Phonetic Mechanical Wave Dissimulator; activates on contact, settings regulations...huh." Robin read, distracted, making a concluding sound of interest. He took the little gadget that was no bigger than his pinkie-nail and pressed it on his neck near his windpipe. He fiddled on his computer.

"Batman never talks; you should know that better than any of us." Wally snorted, playing with his goggles. "Dude, shouldn't you read the directions before you know what it does?"

"Nah, dude, it's just a voice modifier." The acrobat clad in red and black said as the frequency of his voice dropped several octaves. "Whoooooa." He smirked widely, shouting like the Kool Aid man, "OH, YEEEEAH!"

Miss Martian and Artemis laughed at the teen's sudden voice change. Wally snickered madly. "Dude, let me try! Haha, you sound like Samuel L. Jackson or something!"

Robin was laughing in delight in his new-found toy as well, changing the pitch frequency as he spoke. "Ready, ready, check this out!" It was odd to hear his voice go through all those ranges, but he finally found the one he was looking for. It was Batman's. "I'm the hero Gotham needs, but not the one it deserves."

"Hahahah, if he heard you say that he would kill you." The elder teen laughed, trying to grab the voice changer from Robin. Robin changed the pitch again. It was Wally's mom's voice.

"WALLACE WEST!" He shouted. Artemis laughed the hardest out of the entire team; even Superboy was laughing. "How many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?!"

"Quit it, dude, my turn!"

Robin swung away, smirking deviously. "Chill, let me try something else! I wonder if it does different animal sounds." He hit the wrong button, and instead he sounded like a robot. He gasped, his grin a very evil one, and changed the frequency to match the voice he had in mind. "Waaall-E!" He sang, sounding like the little robot from the Pixar movie.

Wally groaned smacking his hand on his face. "Dude, _noooooo_."

It was too late. Robin was spinning around in his chair, chanting the name over and over just like the movie. "Wall-E! Waaaaaaall-EEEE! WAAAAAAA—!"

"DUDE!"

"Walla-walla-walla-walla-walla-walla—!"

"Ok, haha, very funny, now let me see—."

"Wall-E wanna cracker?"

"Dude, if you don't stop right now, I swear I'm gonna punch you."

"Haha, instead of where's Waldo, it should be where's Wally!" Robin cackled his trademark cackle-infused laugh, which sounded twice as funnier to him since he was using the robot voice. "Wouldn't it be funny, _Waaaaaall-E?_"

Kid Flash unfastened his seat belt and tackled Robin where he sat. The two fell on the ground wrestling. Kid Flash hit the keys on the holographic computer by accident, and the voice frequency changed. Robin's robot-voice yelling now changed into something else entirely. It sounded like he sucked on an entire tank of helium gas. Robin screamed and fell over on the ground, holding his stomach in pain as he died of laughter at his own voice. "WAAAAH-HA HAHA HAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAA...!"

"Is he going to be OK?" Superboy asked despite his amused chuckles. KF decided to just leave Robin to his own amusement on the ground, laughing at his own voice.

"He'll get over it."Aqualad shook his head at their youngest's antics.

KF huffed, sitting back in his seat. "He just needs to get over himself. He has the maturity of a five-year-old."

"Haha, dude, and you _don't_?" The boy wonder asked between laughs. "Hahaha, I sound like a friggin chipmunk. Like Alvin or Theodore or something!" He commented. "DUUUDE, I should totally screw around with the bad guys when we get there!"

"Yeah, you do that." Wally crossed his arms and stuck his tongue out at his friend.

Robin simply grinned. "Oh, KF," and sighed, "_W__all_ever's the matter?"

"Dude. I hate you. So much."

* * *

A/n: Today, Wally is the poor butt-end of Robin's puns. Because even best friends can't escape the wrath of Robin's trolling.

Did you guys know that Jesse McCartney voiced a chipmunk? More continuity! Hooray!

I've decided I'm going to try to make the 'wordplay' chapters Robin trolling on all his teammates using their names. To challenge myself. Why not?

Next chapter (vote):  
**A.** The English/Reading tutor  
**B. **Robin's big debut in Gotham  
**C.** Wordplay (surprise team member)

Reviews are like bacon. One can never have enough bacon. Just like one can never have enough reviews.


	5. The Tutor Trials

A/n: It was a close vote this time around. Option A trumped C by ONE point.

I've hit five chapters! Honestly, I didn't even think I'd make it past the first haha xD Time to thank everyone!

**yumisaurous**, _1rosiestar1_, **MARKAC**, _AnimeEmoPixi95_, **Megathumb**, _RedWing0109_, **ObsessedNerdGirl**, _5-STAR_, **PokerFaceLovesMakorra**, _trix1015_, **witchsoul531**, _angel grayson_, **Scotty1609**, _guest_, **Son of Erebus god of Shadows**, _DoomStone_, **ARL15**, _Shojobaby_, **Smile Sweetly. Laugh Loudly**, _unknown_, **minichurros123**, _SilverNightfall_, **WWExRulexBreakerx**, _Zena-Xina_, **Destiel101**, _Poseidon'sdaughter3_, **Karategurl13**, _Luckyreader2000_, **Guest**, _mee_, **SnowWolf22**, _viridianaln9_, **DemonFireFox**, _Rebel E__nergy_, and **Dragonman. NET**!

Thank you all so very much for taking the time to review with motivational feedback and chapter votes! You're the best! And thank you everyone who has put this story on alert/favorite!

To those of you who went the extra mile and added _me_ as on alert or favorite author, I give you a internet glomp of eternal love 3

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Five - The Tutor Trials_

* * *

"Master Bruce, are you sure about this?"

"Positive."

"And what makes you so certain that this will work?"

"Intuition."

"With all due respect, Master Bruce, I'd appreciate it if you give me a more detailed response as opposed to the one-word treatment you give your employees." The butler huffed, giving the man a pointed glower. Bruce looked up from his computer and almost recoiled, his brow frowning in a silent apology. He sighed and pushed back from the desk, running his large hand through his hair.

"Sorry, Alfred, I was distracted." He gratefully accepted the mug of piping-hot coffee from the elder man, blowing away the steam to cool it off before he took a hearty sip.

Alfred nodded, accepting said apology. He walked around to behind the desk of the billionaire's study, peering over the tall chair of the desk to see what the man had been doing. "It's quite alright, Master Bruce. I presume these are the candidates you have in mind?"

Bruce nodded as well, scrolling through the list of people for Alfred to see with a scrutinizing gaze. "I've narrowed it down to twenty-two possibilities."

"Quite an improvement from yesterday's twenty-three."

"Is that sarcasm, Alfred?"

"Of course not, Master Bruce."

The list the two men were discussing were teachers. More specifically, English teachers. They were private tutors, all highly qualified. Their resumes were the types of resumes that people bragged about. Ivy-League college degrees; soaring GPA; internships and past employments in jobs with their own outstanding reputation both national and international. Not only that, but they all specialized in specific area of tutoring: they tutored children. This is what interested Bruce. The problem was that like all the truly important things in his life —the matters that came extremely close to home— making the decision of picking _who_ would tutor his newly adopted son was proving to be more than difficult.

Young Richard Grayson, orphaned aerialist-acrobat of the Flying Graysons family that performed in renowned Haly's Circus, was brought into Wayne Manor five months ago. There were many things to take into account. The obvious was that this tutor needed to be _good_ at his or her calling. Dick's native language was Romani; many performers in Haly's Circus cast were of gypsy origins. While his parents had been doing a good job of teaching him the basics thus far, his knowledge of the language was a far cry from passable. What the child knew was just enough to get by with Alfred and Bruce, which meant that, yes, the pair ended up getting a few lessons in Romani to be able to understand the boy better. There was also the fact that this tutor needed to be discreet: paparazzi would flock once they had word that the adopted son of Bruce Wayne had a tutor. Those people just wouldn't quit; they wanted as much information on the child as they could.

Yet it wasn't just that. No, Dick had wormed his way into Bruce's heart from the very first time he saw him. The little child was a shadow of himself. He'd (unfortunately) lived through the same tragedy and grief that he went through. And still...Dick was was alive. Not the literal meaning of alive, but alive in the sense that somehow, he battled through the first few weeks after his family's death much better than Bruce did. After Bruce rescued him from the Juvenile Detention Center he was housed in (apparently orphan homes were over-housed with children), he opened up to Bruce and Alfred. He sought out their company, made an effort to talk with them. He was slowly smiling and playful, and more than excited to learn that his new father was _the_ Batman.

He was healing.

He brought a life back to Wayne Manor that the mansion hadn't seen in years, and Bruce found himself to be very overprotective of the child that just last week called him daddy after another nightmare episode. Granted, Dick was asleep, but when Bruce awoke the next morning to a tiny person hugging him, he knew the child earnestly felt that way about him.

Hence, the list: twenty-two private tutors with degrees in early childhood learning and development, English teacher, and fluent Romani speakers. Twenty-two candidates from an initial list of fifty-seven. All of which he did an extensive background check on. And no, not just a Bruce Wayne level background check, it was a Batman level background check. With his new baby bird, he was taking _all_ precautions possible. Truth be told, he wasn't really liking any of the options. Even if these people were the best of the best.

"You know, I could tutor young Master Dick in English."

"I'd rather hire the tutor."

"Is this a lack of faith in my teaching ability or my knowledge of my own language?"

"Neither, Alfred. It's just...you already have more than enough work to do, and I wouldn't want to burden you with something else. Besides, Dick already started working with a math tutor. It seems to be working out just fine; I'm sure he'll get along well with an English tutor as well. He's...sunny."

"A more proper term would be vibrant, I believe. I'm also appalled that you think I can't handle tutoring Master Dick with all the other duties I juggle."

"Think of it as my generosity, Alfred. I'm trying to cut you some slack." Bruce shook his head with a chuckle. Alfred took the tray with him as he left the study.

"Hm...I give it a week." The butler hummed conclusively as he made his exit. "By the way, Master Bruce, if you ever plan on getting the boy to learn English before he turns thirteen, might I suggest that you let him pick his tutor? I'll bake cookies and bring a pair of dye so you two can turn the selection process into a game."

"Alright, I get it." Bruce scowled the closest thing to a pout he ever came to at the butler. "Send him up."

"Oh, and Master Bruce? _That_ was sarcasm."

* * *

**Monday...**

The first tutor was more than punctual: he arrived forty-five minutes early. Alfred was slightly irked (he hadn't finished polishing the banister to the center grand staircase, but put his best foot forward when he got the door). He could hear the excited scampering footsteps of Dick running down the hall already. He also heard a few metal objects creaking and falling.

"Dick, get down from the medieval knight statues!"

Apparently, Dick was swinging his way to the front door too. You can take the boy out of the circus, but you can't take the circus out of the boy.

"You must be Professor Thomas Daniels," The butler greeted, allowing the man in. He was a tall gentleman roughly in his fifties, with peppered hair that was combed back and crisply dressed. He shed his jacket while Alfred held his briefcase for him. Then, the butler gave him his belongings, taking his coat to put away. "Allow me, sir."

"Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, he's here!" Dick shouted from the top of the staircase. He hopped up on the banister and straddled it, sliding down with a huge smile on his face. At the bottom of the stairs, before he could leap into a triple flip, Bruce appeared out of seemingly nowhere and caught him. One warning stare from his new father figure and Dick quickly settled down.

"Professor Daniels, thank you for coming." Bruce greeted. The elder man shook his hand.

"It's my pleasure, Mr. Wayne." Then, he turned his gaze down at Dick. He was being held in place under Bruce's hand that patted down hard on his head. Despite his squirming, the boy didn't seem to mind. He was restless. "You must be little Richard Grayson."

Dick nodded, smiling a brilliant smile, "You teach me English?"

The man gave a slight grin in response, "Da."

The little bird's bright blue eyes widened; he hadn't expected that. _"You speak Romani too?"_

_"Yes I do, it's precisely why I'm here."_ Then, he turned to Bruce. "Would you like to wait or—?"

The billionaire shook his head. "Since you're already here there's no need. Follow me, we've prepared a study room."

Alfred watched the trio leave and smirked to himself. He didn't bother following. He had plenty of work to do. Besides, given young Dick's very energetic disposition today, he had an inkling that his very first tutoring session wouldn't last very long. Lo and behold, he was right. Exactly 21 minutes later, Alfred and Bruce heard angry shouting echoing in the hallways. The pair jogged to where the source was coming from, finding a very miffed Professor Daniels storming out of the study room while shoving his books and papers carelessly into his briefcase.

"Where is my coat? I'm leaving!" He caught sight of Gotham's white knight. "I'm deeply sorry, Mr. Wayne, but I'm going to have to decline the job offer. Where's my coat?"

"What? What happened?"

"He just won't sit still! He grabs all my belongings and doesn't have the least amount of care with any of my books! Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to get your hands on Romani texts? There aren't very many in the world because it's not a written language! And don't even get me started on the questions! Absolutely preposterous! Who questions...?!"

* * *

**Tuesday...**

"Dick, what are we going to do today?"

"No grab teacher's book."

"And?"

"No talk when teacher talk."

"_And_?"

"No tricks in study time."

Curtly nodding in satisfaction that the little boy remembered, Bruce carried the child down to the front door where Alfred awaited with two new tutors. They exchanged greetings and introduced themselves. The first tutor readily offered to go first, boasting confidence. Her name was Professor Naomi Watson. After her was Prof. Adam Eddleburg.

Prof. Watson lasted 38 minutes with Dick. Prof. Eddleburg lasted 27.

* * *

**Wednesday...**

"Dick."

"..."

"Do I need to remind you of yesterday? Or the day before?"

"...No."

"So we're clear on what's OK and what's not?"

"...Yes, Bruce."

"Good. There's seven tutors coming in today to see you. Please be on your best behavior."

"Yes, Bruce."

Bruce expected to have guests until late afternoon that Wednesday. They were all gone before brunch.

* * *

**Thursday...**

Bruce sighed, pacing slowly in front of a very affronted and guilt-ridden toddler whose head was bowed down from fear of how angry his new father might be. Alfred silently watched from the kitchen sink, cleaning the dishes his two charges had used for breakfast. "Richard," He began. The child visibly flinched, and Alfred pointedly cleared his throat, glaring at the billionaire. Bruce took one look at Dick and realized how scared he probably was of what he'd say. He let out a weary sigh through his teeth, choosing to sit next to the boy. "Dick," he began again, more gently, "I don't know what the problem seems to be."

"No...body...likes...me." The child whimpered, his voice cracking and eyes teary. Bruce put a warm, comforting hand on the little boy's shoulder, making the child look up at him. He swept the messy black bangs out of his watery eyes.

"That's not true. You're a great person, Dick. You're...you're a good kid." He admitted. The blue-eyed boy sniffled and wiped his tears away before they could fall. The billionaire continued, "They don't hate you, Dick. Nobody does. You have to understand that you're a very...abrasive person. The good kind of abrasive."

Dick's brows betrayed his confusion. "What is bray-sive?"

"_A_brasive. It means someone who wears down people very easily. You're a very cheerful and friendly person, Dick, but there are times where you come off a little too strong. You need to hold back on all the chatting and the hugging, alright?"

The little boy nodded, then grinned shyly. "I'm...strong?"

Bruce grinned back, messing with his hair on purpose. "Strongest person I know. Even stronger than Batman." Then, picking him up, he made his way to the door. "Now let's go see the new tutors..."

* * *

**Friday...**

There had to be something wrong. There was no possible way that they went through half of the tutors on his list in four days time, and all of them either left angry or flat out refusing the job. The complete list, as in the initial cut. What on earth could be the matter?

This was stopping today. Today, Bruce was going to sit in with the only tutor that had the gall to show at his home and Dick. Rumor spread that Dick was a rather...difficult child to teach. That in itself was also confusing to Bruce. Dick was as sharp as his bat-a-rangs, bright as the Bat-signal beacon. If they were calling his little boy stupid, heads would roll. He promised that.

The woman's name was Dr. Hannah Beare. She was a young woman, early thirties her latest, with her strawberry blonde hair pulled back neatly into a ponytail and her hazel gray eyes clear behind her slim glasses. She was certainly very pretty, which dazed Dick into this odd sort of enchantment towards her. Eight years old, and the little boy was already falling for pretty faces.

"_You're_ little Richard Grayson? You're positively adorable!"

Apparently, he was already stealing hearts as well.

Dick went along with Dr. Beare well enough. Now, as Bruce sat quietly in the corner with Alfred watching the woman tutor his child, he hoped that they'd get along well enough for the woman to keep the job. So far, the first half hour had gone without a hitch. The longest any tutor this past week endured was 50 minutes. It was also the same tutor that Alfred had to call an ambulance for. Somehow, Dick talked the man into letting him teach him how to do a double back flip off the table. Bruce couldn't tell what was more unbelievable: Dick trying to teach a 67-year-old man how to perform acrobatics, or the 67-year-old man actually _trying_ to learn.

Regardless, this tutoring session was actually going well...

"Very good, Dick. So how would you correct this statement?"

Dick paused, cutely scrutinizing at the page in front of him with his cheeks puffed in thought. "Peter does want to come this summer. It's just that he can't get off work."

"Excellent! Let's move on to-."

"Ms. Hannah, I have question." He said, continuing in Romani because he didn't know how to express his doubt in English. _"Why is that statement correct? The first sentence is positive, and the second one is negative. _'Does want'_ can't be correct because it goes against _'can't'_ in the second sentence. It's just like math, right? When you multiply two positives you get a positive, and when you multiply two negatives you get a positive."_

Dr. Beare and Bruce stared in complete disbelief at the child's cognitive thinking. "Y-yes, Dick, that's correct." Dr. Beare replied.

_"A positive and a negative make a negative, which in English means the answer's wrong, right? That's how it is in Romani. And Spanish too; the Castillian knife-throwers from the circus told me so."_

Dr. Beare laughed nervously. "Well, yes and no. You see, Dick, one of the reasons why the English language is considered to be the hardest language to learn is because almost every rule about it is only 90% valid. It's one of the most frustrating things to understand and remember. What you just pointed out is correct. Technically speaking, the sentence should say 'Peter **wants**' instead of '**does want**'. However, in certain instances, you can use the auxiliary and principle verb together to form a positive sentence. This exception is allowed to add extra emphasis. Do you know what auxiliary and principle verbs are?"

"Prin-cee-ple is the main verb of action or being. Aug-zi-larry-."

"Auxiliary."

"_Auuuxiliary_ verbs help the main verb." Dick finished. "So...you can change sentence to 'Peter really wants to come this summer'?"

"Exactly."

"But what if he doesn't _reaaaally_ want to come, he just wants to come like normal?" He inquired, continuing, "Ms. Hannah I have 'nother question. _If you use that rule to put a positive and negative sentence together to make a statement that makes sense, then why does that rule not apply when you add stress to these three negative sentences? It says _'I don't think Peter wants to come with us this summer. He told me that he wouldn't be able to come, but I think he just doesn't want to come with us.'_ But then the paper here says that to correct it you say that _'Peter **does** want to come'_, and the rest of the sentence is all negatives that says why he can't. Why can't you use another negative to explain the reason since the entire statement is negative?"_

"I...well..."

_"This chapter is called _'Simple Present'_, but all it's doing is making it harder to say. Why is it wrong to say the first sentence when it's the easiest one? It makes sense! It's just like _'Simple Present in Future Tense'._ You can't use the present in the future; it's the fuuutuuure! If the question says _'When will the train leave Gotham?'_ then the answer should be _'It **will** leave at seven tomorrow morning,' _not _'It **leaves** at seven tomorrow morning'. 'Leaves' _ means it's happening right now, but the person is asking about tomorrow! Now doesn't happen tomorrow, it happens right NOW!"_

"I...I don't know!" The woman shook her head with a wail, rubbing her temples. She felt a migraine coming on quick. "I don't know, OK?!" She screamed, hastily grabbing her belongings, and running out the room. Dick stared wide-eyed at the pretty lady that just left, completely confused, and a little heart-broken that another tutor ran out. They all ran out after he asked his questions. He didn't understand why; wasn't that the reason why they were here?

He turned to Bruce, his expression that of complete innocence and perplexion. "I just asked a question, Bruce. I promise I did nothing bad."

Alfred chuckled knowingly, taking the little boy by the hand. "We know you didn't, Master Dick. It's alright, you're not in trouble. Master Bruce just has to make a few phone calls to you, er, would-be tutors. Now, why don't you help me down in the kitchen? I found a new snicker-doodle cookie recipe I'd like to try."

"What about Ms. Hannah? Is she coming back?"

Alfred shook his head with a warm smile. "No, she will not. Rest assured, Master Dick, come Monday morning I will tutor you in English, and I promise to answer all of your questions to the peak of my ability. Isn't that right, Master Bruce?"

Bruce held his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, as he rubbed his temples. He, too, felt a headache coming on. Still, he managed to glower at his caretaker that was very full of himself and not ashamed to show-so. "That's correct." He sourly admitted.

He hated it when Alfred was right.

* * *

A/n: Alfred should've placed money on his bet. He would've won handsomely. Hahaha, poor Dick. Sometimes he just...talks too much? Bruce couldn't be mad even if he tried.

That moment when you realize your son is so smart he outsmarts and confuses scholars and makes them question the very things they went to school to learn for.

I have a feeling that if young Dick met Damian, the two could have a conversation for _hours_ about all the contradictions of the English language. Hm...maybe **that's** why Dick and Damian get along so well!

As always, thanks for reading! Please review!

Next chapter (vote):  
**A.** Robin's big debut in Gotham  
**B.** Wordplay (surprise team member)


	6. Wordplay on Conner

A/n: The events of this chapter take place after M'gann helps Superboy find his name, Conner.

If Robin actually made puns out of his teammates names in canon/the show I'd imagine he'd be all over this ground-breaking moment in Conner's life...much to poor Conner's annoyance. (Which, by the way, I **really** wish he did. As season one progressed his trolling became less and less, and now in season two there's NONE! ...Except for that one wordplay he did against Impulse in the episode "Bloodlines." If you blinked once, you missed him thinking about how Impulse uses the word 'crash'. If you blinked twice, you missed him turning lil' speedster's own favorite word against him.)

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Six- Wordplay on Conner_

* * *

Batman was right. Robin _really_ should learn when to shut his mouth. Or just flat-out keep his mouth shut.

...Nah! Where's the fun in that?

With as much casual finesse as he could muster ▬which was quite a lot of casual finesse; Batman literally trained him to be prepared for anything▬ the boy wonder waltzed his way up quietly behind Superboy. The big blue boy-scout's more temperamental clone was helping his Martian sweetheart set the table for dinner. Because, for once, the team was gathered at quarter-to-seven in the evening, not somewhere halfway across the country or the planet fighting crime, not training, and not bickering. For once, they were hanging out just as teenagers their age normally would, and M'gann decided to make dinner for everyone. And for once, M'gann's large-scale cooking project hadn't gone awry. She was finally getting the hang of it.

Robin had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face a prankster could wear.

From across the room, Wally caught sight of what Robin was doing. Well, what Robin was about to do. His best friend was an idiot. An idiot and a masochist. He _was_ watching Artemis and Kaldur play videos games. Now, he was certain that he was about to watch the death of his best friend.

"DUDE." The speedster in civvies mouthed, wide-eyed and fearful as he shook his head. "NO." Even from behind the sunglasses, Wally could tell that the little bird of the team blinked in fake confusion before smiling wide and holding two thumbs up. He nodded as well. Yep, his best friend was definitely a childish, stupid idiot. Dammit, where was Roy when a voice of reason Robin _actually_ listened to was needed? Or Batman for that matter?

Wally waved his arms out in front of himself in a slicing motion, still shaking his head. "ABORT." He mouthed again, but Robin only grinned wider to the point where his cheeks dimpled. He was going to go through with it. Wally face-palmed. This was not going to end well. The little bat-brat better have included something for him in his will.

**Earlier...**

Robin sat in the living room of the cave, playing _Mortal Kombat_ in story mode...for the eighteenth time. He'd beaten the game so many times it wasn't even funny anymore. It was just a sad excuse for a distraction. Playing online wasn't that much fun either. Most of the players weren't a challenge for him. It was ironic, because you'd think that someone who spent most of their day gaming (this was an assumption, of course) would be a very worthy opponent, as opposed to the thirteen-year-old teen who went to school by day, fought crime by night, and juggled in the social life of both Dick Grayson and Boy-Wonder Robin. Apparently...not. He still kicked everyone's butt.

Sometimes, being computer and game savvy sucked.

"Ugh, well isn't this just great? I come to the cave for company, and no one's here. Seriously, the Bat-cave's more lively than this place. At least there's all the bats..." He complained to no one. He paused his game, tapping into the holographic computer in his wristwatch. Maybe he could kill some time and try hacking into the League's mainframe. It'd been a month since he last hacked in. Bats probably forgot about it by now.

He'd reached the seventy-fourth out of one-hundred-twenty-one firewalls when company finally arrived.

**Recognized: Miss Martian, B-05**

**Recognized: Superboy, B-04**

"Finally!" The acrobat shouted, flipping backwards over the couch and bounding over to the couple that wasn't a couple quite yet with a happy spring in his step. They had a number of grocery bags with them. "I was starting to get bored; seriously, I was about to do something that would've had Bats grounding me from patrol for a week. What's up?"

"Oh, hey Robin! Not too much; Conner and I stopped by the supermarket on our way home from school to restock the cave. Would you mind helping? I'll go ahead and get these in the freezer before they melt or go bad." The ever-cheerful green girl greeted, levitating her share out to the kitchen as well as Superboy's. Robin nodded and followed the Kryptonian back out to the Zeta tubes where plenty of other grocery bags were waiting.

"Conner?" He echoed, raising a brow from behind his shades at the older boy. Superboy looked down at him, rubbing the back of his neck in an almost bashful manner.

"Yeah. I needed a name this morning...for school."

"Supey, you needed a name _period_." The black-haired acrobat interjected with a snicker. "Sorry, continue."

"M'gann picked it for me. Conner Kent."

"Conner Kent, huh? Well, congratulations, Supey! Our little boy is growing up so fast!" He joked, mocking sniffles and wiping an imaginary tear from behind his shades. They began hauling back another armful of groceries to the kitchen. "Hm...Conner...Cooonner...Conner Kent..."

"Is there something wrong with my name?"

"Huh? Oh, no, it's nothing, Supes, just thinking out loud."

"About my name?"

"Yep." He replied, popping the 'p' for emphasis. He began to grin. "Say, do you know what puns are?"

Superboy paused to think about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Why?"

"No reason."

"Should I know what they are?"

"Eeeeh...not really. But you will." Robin shrugged, skipping ahead, "It's a very _conn_on form of _conn_edy."

Up until he got home from his first day of school, Conner had no idea what a pun was. Within an hour after coming back home to the cave, he was starting to get the gist of it...and it was all thanks to Robin.

"Hey, Supey, _conn_ I ask you a question?"

"Haha, so guys, I was texting Wally today during fourth block, and you'll never believe what I _conn_vinced him to do!"

"I learned a new tongue twister from my friend today, Conner! Wanna hear it? _Conn_ you _conn-a-conn as a _conn_er __conn_ _conn_-a-_conn_?" ((Can you can-a-can as a canner can can-a-can?))

"Wanna hear another one? Of COURSE you do! How much caramel _conn_ a _conn_y _conn_onball cram in a _conn_el if a _conn_y _conn__onball __conn_ cram caramel in a _conn_el? Try saying that one five times fast! Actually, I can say it ten times fast; it's all about diction! Repeat after me. How much caramel _COOOOONN—_?" ((How much caramel can a canny canonball cram in a camel if a canny canonball can cram caramel in a camel))

Thanks to Robin, Conner now got the picture of what a pun was...in high-definition and surround-sound quality. He decided he didn't like puns. At all.

"Ever wonder how a person becomes a _conn_ibal, Conner?"

"Conner! Coooooonner! Why won't you _conn_verse with me?!"

Needless to say, Superboy was pissed. He didn't bother hiding his irritation either. Maybe that way Robin would get a clue and back off. Needless to say, Robin did no such thing. How could he? Seriously, the guy chose quite possibly the easiest name on the planet to punnify▬and he thought Roy's was easy! Besides, trifling with the clone's unstable temperament made him feel like some sort of daredevil. This continued throughout the rest of the afternoon▬this dangerous game of mouse taunting giant, bi-polar, super-human dragon▬until Conner gave Robin a single warning an hour ago. A very dark, barely calm one:

"Robin. **Lay. off.** No more stupid puns with my name."

Kaldur, who had returned from Atlantis at some point in the afternoon (Robin didn't even notice his return or anyone else; that's how much fun he was having), did a very sensible thing. He invited (forced) Robin to have a sparring match with him. They fought for a half hour, then went to wash up for dinner. Kaldur returned from the showers before the youngest hero of the team and decided to join Wally and Artemis' very competitive game of _Mortal Kombat_. Which leads back to now: what may possibly be Robin's last breathing moments. No matter how much Wally shook his head no, nothing was deterring Robin from his next gag. The speedster mentally recited final wishes for his friend. He'd miss him dearly.

"Hey, M'gann," Robin sang innocently. "Don't you two look all busy and couple-y. Need help?"

The Martian girl blushed slightly, moving hot pots off the stove with her telekinesis. "No thank you, Robin. I'm just about done. Conner's setting the table, but I think he can handle that as well."

The boy wonder shrugged. "OK. Just thought I might ask." He walked around the other side of the dining table, glancing with fake disinterest at Conner's handiwork. Rest assured, the Bat-protégé didn't fail to notice the brief but wary gaze the boy of steel shot him. That didn't stop him from opening his mouth. Wally braced for impact.

"Y'know," he tutted, picking up a fork, "you didn't set the table _conn_rectly."

Superboy let out a snarl that made goosebumps rise on Robin's skin. He dropped all the tableware in his arms, slamming his hands down on the table with so much force that one of it's legs broke and shot out from beneath it. "Not set up '_conn_rectly', huh?! I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT'S NOT SET UP '_CONN_RECTLY'!" He shouted, lunging for the teen across the table. Robin yelled at the top of his lungs in pure horror, running at breakneck speed to get as far away from the clone as possible. The entire team, startled, stared numbly for a few seconds. Only Wally wailed over the not-yet-death of his best friend, mourning that he was too young and bad-ass to die. Then, they sprung into action in an attempt to save the prankster from the prank-ee. Superboy chased Robin around the living room, kitchen, monitor room, then back again. The acrobat tried to make a quick getaway through the air vents, but Conner caught his ankle at the last second.

"Ahh! No, please! Mercy! Mercy! Uncle! _¡__Ayudame_! I surrender!" The little bird cried as he was hoisted up in the air by the collar of his sweater. He flailed in a useless attempt to put distance between himself and Conner's fist that was dead-set on making itself acquainted with his eye. Comically enough, Robin looked like one of those old-school cartoons characters running in mid-air. If Conner wasn't so angry it might have been funny. (...It was a little funny.)

"Conner, don't!" M'gann yelled, trying to stand between the two.

Kaldur put his hand on Superboy's forearm, trying to lower his fist. "Conner, let's be reasonable here. Robin is our teammate. Our _thirteen-year-old_ teammate."

"HEY! What's _that_ supposed to mean?! Age does not define maturity!" Robin defended himself. Aqualad sent him a simple, deadpanned look that said 'No kidding'.

"He was just joking with you." The cool-headed Atlantean reasoned. Artemis and Wally were trying to yank Robin down with no luck.

"Yeah, well the joke got old hours ago." The Kryptonian retorted, glaring at Robin.

"He didn't know that!" Artemis jutted in, looking to Wally for help. "You didn't know that, right?"

"Yeah, Rob's a big clown! He didn't mean to get you angry or anything, isn't that right, Robbie?" Wally piped up.

"Superboy, 'got old' is politically incorrect. The correct phrase is▬."

"Dude, seriously! Not the time for one of your grammar schpeels!"

"Supey▬Conner▬I didn't mean it, OK? I just can't help myself! Your new name is just so squishy and perfect for puns! I mean, half the time I wasn't even trying! Like, '_Conn_ you _conn_ over here'? It's like the puns make themselves!" Superboy growled again, his fist twitching. Robin yelped, "Ahh, sorry, sorry, no, stop with the fist thing! The fist thing is bad! It's all bad! I'm bad, see? Yeah, I'm a terrible, terrible person and I'll stop! I honestly will never ever make a pun out of your name again▬Bat's promise! I'll make it up to you; I'll do anything you want or give you anything! You name it! I'll even grovel at your feet. Hugs and kisses and everything, see?!" To prove his point, Robin kissed his hands and repeatedly 'stamped' the kisses on Conner's fist.

"Don't do that." Weirded out with the little bird's frantic apologies, Conner put his fist down and set Robin back down on the floor. "It's fine, apology accepted." Robin didn't hear. He was too busy patting himself down.

"I'M ALIVE!" With strength Conner didn't know he possessed, Robin glomped him, wrapping his arms and legs as far as they could go around his torso. "I promise I'll never ever never ever never ever NEVER ever▬."

"I get it, you're welcome already! Now get off, you're creeping me out."

"I love yooooou."

"OFF!"

* * *

A/n: Moral of the story? Don't piss of the guy with mood issues that can squash you like a bug. Unless you're small, lovable, and will unashamedly offer apology in the form of hugs and kisses...and your dad's the Batman.

...Unless you're Robin, odds are you shouldn't try this at home.

Next chapter: Robin's big debut in Gotham! Not who the bad guys were expecting...

Review please! Comments; critiques; chapter suggestions; hell, even flames are all welcome! Feedback gets my my a-workin'.


	7. Trolling is Hereditary I

A/n: A few responses to a few reviewers...

**Destiel101**- As long as it's not an important gut :D

**dragonman. NET**- Do you mean for chapter five specifically, or in general? In general I plan on trolling the names of everyone in the YJ team, if you guys love this story long enough. (Trust me, I've looked at Artemis and Zatanna's names and thought 'hm...must plot HARDER')

**(anon) Amara**- Thank you for the idea! I like it, I'll definitely use it in a future chapter!

**Wintress**-I'm so glad you caught that bit with Black Canary in chapter five.

**Scotty1609**- Thank you for this idea! Maybe when I write that one I'll make it as an immediate response to after Robin trolled him? I think this could work...muahaha!

**yumisaurous**- I take full pride and responsibility in this trolling. Dick would be proud. Tell your friend Connor he's welcome :D (By the way, your icon? All of my yes)

So. This was supposed to be Robin's big debut as a hero. Unfortunately, I'm a big idiot (see what I did there?) and forgot to save the file on fanfiction before I returned to school. So now I'm stuck at my dorm without it until Friday. I didn't want to leave you hanging (and writing FF actually keeps me organized on schoolwork). To make it up to you guys, I've come up with this little surprise...

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Seven - Trolling is Hereditary (Part I of III)_

* * *

Stealth was not a concern on Artemis' mind as she stomped her way down a bleak and grimy back-alley of Gotham City. She reached a broken-down, abandoned telephone booth—a hidden Zeta-beam platform—and teleported to Mt. Justice. Once there, she the blonde archeress followed the sound of talking to the living room, where the rest of the team was already gathered. It was the morning news feed from Gotham on the large, flat-screen TV. Whatever the reason the Young Justice team was summoned this morning, it had something to do with this.

"Anyone have an idea what sort of mission we're going into?" The arriving girl said around a yawn. She slumped down on the couch next to the half-snoozing heap that was Kid Flash, elbowing him in the ribs. He jumped up with a startled grunt, mumbling that he was awake. "Better be pretty important to have dragged sleeping beauty here out of bed."

"Hi—," The redhead yawned, "—larious."

"I did not overhear much, but when my king spoke to the other League members at the Watchtower they discussed that we'd be needed for what happened in Gotham City last night. Whatever the assignment is, it is in direct relation to those events." Aqualad explained, his seaglass-blue eyes never leaving the television screen.

"But I thought Gotham was off-limits for us." M'gann said, seated on Wally's other side. "Isn't that what Robin said?"

"Gotham's off-limits for _everyone_, beautiful. It's Bat-turf." The speedster spoke up, now more alert. "You try fighting crime there and Batman makes _sure_ you never forget to not set foot in there again. He and Rob are kind of extremely territorial. Have you ever tried to go into Robin's room without his permission?"

"Then something's changed," Superboy said conclusively, "otherwise they wouldn't be calling us." Without another word, the team continued to watch the news in silence until someone showed up with their mission briefing.

**Recognized: Superman, 0-1.**

**Recognized: Batman, 0-2.**

**Recognized: Martian Manhunter, 0-7.**

**Recognized: Flash, 0-4.**

**Recognized: Wonder Woman, 0-3.**

**Recognized: Robin, B-01.**

**Recognized: Green Arrow, 0-8**

**Recognized: Aquaman, 0-6**

**Recognized: Red Tornado, 1-6.**

"This can't be good…" Artemis muttered under her breath. It was an unspoken rule-of-thumb that if you were getting a visit from more than three members of the Justice League at a time, odds were you were in for something deep. The teens went to the monitor room where their mentors and fellow heroes-in-arms awaited them. With the JL members were two civilians: a toddler of no more than six or seven asleep on Wonder Woman's shoulder and a teen of roughly fifteen or sixteen in sunglasses standing beside Superman. This was the first thing the team noticed, so naturally it was the first thing they asked about.

"Who's Miss Sunshine?" Superboy inquired. The teen—dressed somewhat similarly to how Robin would dress—in shades scowled darkly, shooting a look up at Superman that made the man of steel chuckle nervously. Wally laughed and fist-bumped Superboy.

"Nice one, Supey!" He complimented. His laughter, however, instantly died when he did a double take at the newcomer pair. His eyes darted to the cherub-faced child in Wonder Woman's arms. He'd recognize that face anywhere. "Is that…?" He pointed. The Amazonian princess nodded. The young speedster gulped nervously, looking again at the angry teen with Superman. "And that's…?" He looked at his uncle, who nodded while giving him a reprimanding gaze through his scarlet cowl. Kid Flash shrunk where he stood and hid behind Conner. "Oooooh boy…" The team still had no idea what was going on, but if it got Kid-Mouth quiet that quickly then it _definitely_ couldn't be good.

"What's going on?" Miss Martian glanced around the room at the elder heroes. They shared a collective gaze that said 'who wants to go first'?

"Hehe…well…ahh, boy, where do we start?" Green Arrow nervously scratched the back of his hood.

"I think it would be easiest if we just showed them what happened." Martian Manhunter suggested, getting everyone's nod of approval except for the moody teen's and, obviously, the sleeping baby.

The black-haired boy frowned, "Only last night's memories, _only_ the fight—just cut right to the chase." He specified. He definitely wasn't Robin. His voice was gruffer, deeper; almost a little hoarse, yet somehow smooth. He then pointed to the slumbering toddler. "And _no_ tapping into his mind. He's asleep."

"Who _are_ these two? And why are you guys acting so mysterious?" Artemis questioned. "I'm pretty sure that at this leg of the race, none of us are that easily surprised or scared. It's tough to freak us out at this point."

"That's what I thought," Flash said, briefly closing his eyes as J'onn tapped into his mind with the link. The Young Justice team felt the familiar sensation of the mind link opening up in their heads shortly after. "So we'll let you guys be the judge of that."

* * *

Last Night, 12:57 AM EST  
Gotham City

Batman put the final set of bat-cuffs on the no-name criminal that swung slowly with his other tied-up buddies on a hook of a construction crane, upside down. He let a rare smirk of satisfaction curl his lips when he pushed the quartet of men off the hood of the crane's operation cabin. They screamed like little girls. Below, on some concrete sewage pipes to be installed in the street beneath them, he heard his protégé's cackle of amusement. With silence grace the bat dropped down from the construction crane and emerged from a tied-up Bane's shadow. Robin stood fearlessly in front of the captured criminal, teasing him.

"This was just sad, Bane. I can't decide which is your sloppiest work to date: tonight, or that one time my friends and I kicked your butt on that island in Santa Prisca."

The large, hulking man struggled against his binds, glaring at the thirteen-year-old. "¡Callate la pinche boca, pajarito!" (("Shut your fucking mouth, birdie!")) The man hadn't noticed the DARK Knight's presence behind him yet, otherwise he wouldn't have yelled at Robin. With one fluid motion, Batman grabbed the back of Bane's mask and smashed his head against the concrete pipes.

"Eres mas pendejo que pansabas. _Nunca_ hable asi con Robin, ¿comprendes?" (("You're even dumber than I thought. _Never_ speak that way to Robin, understand?")) Setting off a Bat-tracker for the commissioner and the police to come detain Bane and his lackeys, Batman started walking back to the Bat-tumbler. "Let's go."

Bane couldn't help but stare in surprise. "You speak Spanish?"

Robin waved off the criminal with a cheeky salute. "¡Claro, tonto! ¡Hasta despues!" (("Off course, dummy! See you later!")) The black-haired boy raced back to the Bat-tumbler and hopped into the passenger seat beside his mentor. The two drove off. "What's nest? I'm feeling all kinds of aster tonight!"

"Home." The man stated simply. Robin didn't fail to look disappointed.

"What, already? Why? There was like, five or six different criminal activities going on. I saw it on the computer before we left."

"A domestic fight that caused a house fire, two low-scale drug busts, and three robberies, all of which have been taken care of by the cops."

Robin snorted, "Are you telling me that I'm _actually_ getting more than four hours of sleep for once? Lame."

"Robin, do you remember what I taught you about taunting the enemy?"

"Uh, as I recall, you didn't?"

"That's because we _don't_ taunt them." He retorted pointedly.

"Right, right…but you have to admit that while Bane isn't the smartest bad guy we fight, his plan tonight was pretty stupid." The teen chuckled. He could swear he saw his father-figure smirk in unadmitted agreement.

"Just don't make a habit of it."

The duo made it to the inter-state highway when an incoming call from the Watchtower patched through to their dashboard. Robin brought it up for viewing on the tumbler's holographic computer screen. It was Aquaman. "Batman, we have a situation on our hands. It's the Brain. He's stolen something from LexCorp. We think its computer or weapons parts for something he's making. It's all-out war between his men and Luthor's. Superman, Wonder Woman, the Hawks, Lantern Guy, and Martian Manhunter are already on the scene, but they need backup. Flash, Green Arrow and I are headed there now."

"Give me the coordinates." Batman said, already sending a wire through to Alfred back at the cave to send the Bat-jet.

"No need, you're already en-route." Aquaman said. The confusion that didn't show on Batman's face appeared on Robin's. "Whatever the Brain stole is headed north. The escape route is the main highway that cuts through Gotham City. According to satellite tracking it should be cutting through there at any moment. We'll meet you there A.S.A.P. Aquaman out."

Robin couldn't help the huge grin on his face. "Batman—."

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm gonna say!" The teen yowled.

"Yes, I do. As soon as I spot the convoy I'm leaving to help the other Leaguers. _You_ are taking the Bat-tumbler and going straight back home." He ordered without room for argument. "This is League business."

It wasn't hard to spot the path the convoy and criminals were taking: not with how loud and destructive the particular group of heroes that were handling it was. Driving in the opposite traffic on the bridge beneath the one the fight was on; Batman opened the roof of the tumbler and used his grappling hook on an overhead helicopter to fly out of the car. Immediately after his departure, the armed vehicle went on autopilot and re-routed its course back to the Bat-cave. Robin sat pouting with his arms crossed over his chest in the passenger seat…until a thought occurred to him. With a sly grin, the young hero hopped into the driver's seat and hacked into the car's computer system, overriding the autopilot setting.

"This may be League business, but this is Gotham City. What belongs to Gotham belongs to Batman…and _me_." He cackled delightfully, grinning from ear to ear. "Man, I love loopholes."

With autopilot now disengaged, Robin took control of the wheel. He'd never driven the Bat-tumbler before, but he knew how it operated. Also, just because he rode shotgun all the time with Batman didn't mean he wasn't paying attention to how the knight handled the controls. Firing two rockets at the top deck of a multi-car transporter truck (in moving traffic, mind you), the little ninja made the ramp fall against the pavement. It created sparks of friction as the truck kept moving. Revving up the tumbler, Robin used the transporter as a ramp. He raced up onto the truck and flew up in the air, landing on the upper bridge in on-coming traffic. He did a U-turn as he landed; creating smoke and tire tread marks and the loudest screech he'd ever heard a car make until he came to a full stop. He smiled to himself as he raced to catch up with the others.

"I love this car."

Meanwhile, things weren't going all that well with the League. Initially Batman couldn't fathom why on earth a handful of super-powered people couldn't handle your average lot of gun-wielding criminals. He did it _all the time_. He slightly underestimated Aquaman when he said 'all-out war.' Only slightly, because he's the God-damn Batman. There really were gunmen _everywhere_ And these were no average guns. No, on Lex's side they had high-caliber stun-guns and something else he didn't bother paying attention to, because his bat-a-rangs and other bat-weapons were still getting the job done. On Brain's he had the same thing, and a few meta-humans for fun. Because why the hell shouldn't he, right? Just make everything more challenging!

It was complete chaos. To the Justice League's credit, they were actually being the least destructive party of the three-way battle and trying their best not to do damage to their surroundings. Luthor and the Brain's men already took care of that. As he gradually made his way further and further into the battle grounds, Batman targeted the convoy that held whatever it was these people were fighting so desperately over. His intention was to blow it sky-high to get this brawl over with quick before these people reached the heart of Gotham City. Right now they were on the City's outskirts. However, he had to inspect it first: if this thing was dangerous in any way, the League would have to secure it. That meant he'd have to find a way to get two or three of his colleagues to fly it out of here. Just _perfect_. It's like he said, just keep making it harder!

They fought for what felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than ten minutes. Finally, Batman found an opening, and jumped up on top of the large truck transporting Brain's stolen goods. Unfortunately for him, the Brain and Monsieur Mallah were there waiting for him. The Brain made a snide comment about how stopping him wouldn't be so easy and ordered Mallah to take him out, thus engaging the dark knight in another fight. He dimly noted out of the corner of his eye that they were reaching the bridge that crosses into Gotham…and how it was cleared of all civilians…and…was that the Bat-tumbler?

"Robin." He growled under his breath, jumping off of the top of the truck. Two missiles fired, exploding the head of the truck and making the vehicle fly in the air in the explosion. It fell with a booming crash on it's side, sliding until it stopped at the mouth of the bridge, blocking all traffic from going in or out. While the Brain and Monsieur Mallah were dazed from the explosion, Batman doubled back to the truck to try and break inside. Robin somersaulted over the truck, flipping four times before landing neatly on the ground. "I told you this is League business, Robin. Get back to the cave _now_." The man commanded.

"That may be so, but the League is in Gotham's jurisdiction. Aka, Batman's turf; aka, Robin turf; aka, _my_ mission too." He airily replied with a smirk. He easily tore off the door of the truck that was hanging by a hinge. "Besides, they're pretty busy distracting the other guys, which buys us time to figure out what's inside and get away with it. Or make it go boom...if it isn't in a million pieces already." He reasoned. "Was there C-2 in those missiles?" Batman didn't admit it, but his ward had a point. So without admitting anything at all, the bat circled around to the back of the truck to start breaking in from the outside. Robin found the emergency-exit hatch between the melted driver and passenger's seat of the truck into the back and slipped inside. Cautious of where he stepped, he made his way to the cargo. It was a solitary canon.

"Robin, what's inside?" Batman asked over their comm.

"It looks like some sort of laser canon. Real high-tech stuff...I've never seen anything like it before. Doesn't look like it's on..."He inspected it, ready to hack into it with his gauntlet. "I'll check what it is."

"Negative. We don't know how dangerous it is. I've set bat-boomer #2 to the back doors to open the hatch. Ten seconds." Robin nodded even though Batman couldn't see. He took his own R-boomer and set it on the inside, setting it off in five seconds. He had just enough time to take cover before the back door of the truck blew up. Batman quickly joined him inside, glancing over the canon quickly and deciding they should confiscate it. That's when Brain and Monsieur Mallah reappeared.

"And just where do you think you're going?" The robotic brain said in it's broken, monotone speech. "You didn't think it would be so easy, did you?"

Before they realized what was going on, the laser canon behind them hummed loudly, and the mouth of the canon glowed a blue-white light before firing out. Robin felt himself being shoved out of the way into the wall of the truck. He hissed in pain, spitting out a mouthful of blood thanks to biting his tongue. He realized then that the screams of pain that resounded in the metal crate they were trapped in was very familiar. His heart sunk and panic flooded his senses. Nothing else came to the teens mind but fear. Not fear of losing the fight, of fear of his own life, but fear of losing a parent.

Batman was hit. And the laser didn't stop it's constant stream of blue-white fire.

"Batman!" He screamed, pushing himself off the wall with as much force as he could. He tried to push his father out of the way so they were both safe out of the machine's line of fire. Oddly enough, they didn't fall through. In fact, he was _stuck_ in the line of fire with Batman. It was like the canon was holding them there. He screamed out in agony; he'd never felt pain like this before. As fast as it started it was over. The laser canon faltered, flickering before it shut down by itself. It released Batman and Robin from it's hold, and the dynamic duo fell to the ground unconscious.

Outside, the other Leaguers noticed that Batman went missing after the truck exploded and fell over, but they didn't get the chance to look. Not when so many people were firing to hurt or kill them. The fights all came to a halt when a bright white light followed by screams echoed from the truck. Luthor's men were given orders to fall back by Lex himself, and they were gone in moments. Monsieur Mallah appeared with the Brain from behind the truck, ordering their own troops to fall back and make a clean get-away while they could. With the exception of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, the rest of the League pursued Brain. Aquaman put the fire out on the truck, and the three supers ran to the back to see what had happened.

What they found was something that they'd never imagine seeing, not even in their wildest dreams.

* * *

The rest of the simulation played out quickly, and the team stared in nothing short or shock and awe. They were at a loss for words. "...And that's what happened." Superman said with a heavy sigh, avoiding looking down at the moody teen beside him. "Right now, the League's top priority is finding Lex Luthor and the Brain to figure out how the laser canon works and to get it back. Until we do, you guys are—."

"Call it babysitting again, Clark, and I'll break out the emergency Kryptonite from my utility belt and make sure you and it are _very_ acquainted." The black haired teen scowled. Everyone could tell he was glaring through the sunglasses. Superman re-worded his initial phrase.

"...Until then, the team's assignment is to _bodyguard_ Batman," He put a hand on the teen's shoulder, who turned his face away, "And Robin." He finished, nodding to the little boy in Wonder Woman's arms.

Superboy stared at young Batman like he had five heads. Aqualad resembled a fish out of water, his mouth gaping. Miss Martian began babbling nervously in her native Martian tongue and English. Artemis choked on air. Kid Flash passed out on the floor.

What the hell were they going to do?

* * *

A/n: Think of this as my own twist to the very common (and very cute) "de-aged Dick/Robin" prompt that I've seen all over fanfiction/tumblr/deviantart/other-popular-writing-forum-here.

Not only is Dick a baby, but so is Bruce! Well...sort of. How do YOU think they should torment the team? I've got ideas in mind, but I want to see how evil you guys might be...

By the way, I now realize how difficult it is to write and type "tumbler" correctly. Seriously, try it. Right now. Thanks, tumblr. com, thanks a lot. YOU RUINED MY ENGLISH! ;-;

Reeeeview?


	8. Trolling is Hereditary II

A/n: Last chapter set the scene for this little three-part story. After all, if the title wasn't obvious enough, trolling IS hereditary...so we'll get to see where good ol' Dick's terrible ways comes from...

To everyone who made suggestions, I've worked their way into parts two and three. And fore those who asked for fluff...there shall be fluff. Fluff and comedy. Enjoy!

Questionnaire/Answernnaire...

**witchsoul531**- Thank you SO much again for pointing out that mistake! It was huge (and embarrassing now that I look at it lolz). I shall be fixing 'the braniac' to 'the brain' shortly, just as soon as I finish getting this little three-shot posted.

**Chimpchar**- As I just mentioned above, last chapter set the scene. I'm not the type of person to just throw a plot in your face and expect you to understand and follow along. I like story telling. That's why I've been here on fanfiction since '05.

**Wintress**- See?! I told you the tumbler/tumblr thing gets you all confused! By the way, the Bat-tumbler is the correct name for the Bat-mobile in the Dark Knight trilogy. most audiences don't know that. After all, it's a far cry from all the other Bat-mobiles in the Batman's history, and not entirely an automobile to earn the name. It's a mini tank. A mini tank that can take down helicopters and drive on rooftops. Bad-ass as shiiiit.

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Eight - Trolling is Hereditary (Part II of III)_

* * *

The first day of watching Batman and Robin for the team was…awkward. Awkward and eerily quiet. Batman (who insisted they continue calling him Batman despite his age) initially tried to follow the Justice League back to the Watchtower. He was very adamant on restoring his age on his own. He was in for a rude awakening, for his access to the tower was denied. Irked like no other, he tried escaping to the Bat-cave. Imagine his unpleasant surprise when he discovered his access was denied to go to _anywhere_…

It was _very_ unpleasant. Heavy on the un. Alfred and Lucius Fox teamed up with the League and made it so all the computer controls were changed. This meant cyber-warfare. For the entire day until nightfall, Batman was at the monitor room of the cave, doing everything in his fifteen-year-old mind and power to hack the system. He didn't stop for anything: not eating, sleeping, breaks, or even using the restroom. He didn't even stop to see little Dick when he woke up.

Robin spent the entirety of the day with his friends. He was quiet and reserved. He seemed…almost scarred. It was unlike any sort of behavior the teens had ever witness of Robin before. Sure, the kid was more elusive than usual when he wanted to be, but he was always joking and playing around with them. Heaven help them…they actually _missed_ Robin's trolling.

The Flash had explained that Batman and Robin were hit with some sort of energy-generating beam that reversed the biological nature of its target. Simply put, it de-aged the pair. Currently, Batman was around fifteen years of age physically whilst Robin was about seven (despite how much younger he looked; Robin was always tiny). However, the machine wasn't complete, therefore it wasn't fully operational. One of its flaws (or in this case, thankfully, _not_ a flaw) was that the impact on the memory wasn't at full capacity. Ergo, Batman and Robin had gaps in their memories; however the large-scale events that occurred throughout their lives were still imprinted on their minds. So, for the most part, they remembered their superhero lives, just not all the details. Getting reacquainted wouldn't be an issue.

Martian Manhunter confirmed the Flash's theory and explanation by adding that he did a mental sweep on Batman and Robin that proved the scarlet speedster correct. He also added that, because the pair were reverted to their current younger ages, that the compulsory actions and behavior of a normal fifteen-year-old and seven-year-old _would_ impact Batman and Robin's overall behavior. Most likely it would be more apparent in Robin than Batman, but it was still expected from the brooding bat.

It struck the team as more than odd that Robin wasn't chatty, social, or acting even remotely similar to the prankster he was. It _obviously_ weirded them out when Batman almost threw a temper tantrum after half a day spent unsuccessfully breaking into the JL mainframe. But the most peculiar thing of all was that Batman and Robin were _avoiding_ each other. No one dared point it out or ask them about them—not Kaldur or Conner or Artemis or M'gann—but it still left them baffled.

At dinnertime (which Batman skipped), the dark knight received a video-call from the Bat-cave. It was Alfred. The eloquent butler went straight to the point as always, reprimanding his charge for meddling in a case that was out of his hands to solve. Then he changed topic. "How is Master Dick holding up?"

"Fine, I guess. He's with his friends."

"Have you spoken to him?"

"No. I've been busy." He retorted grumpily. "Thanks, by the way, to you and Lucius." He added sarcastically. Alfred sent his a glare that had him shuddering from miles away.

"Bruce Wayne," the man said authoratively, "your thirteen-year-old son risked his life to save you, and you haven't even asked him how he's doing? Need I remind you that if Mast Dick hadn't jumped into that canon's line of fire that you would've been extinguished from existence?" He scolded. "You heard Master Allen's theory: that machine only short circuited because as far as we know it was only programmed to eliminate one target at a time. He _saved_ your _life_. And how do you repay him? With ignorance?

"Sir, the boy needs you. Have you stopped to think of how scared and confused he must be? Recall that at age seven Master Dick still had his parents. His brain tells him they're still alive, but his memories show him otherwise."

Bruce swallowed thickly. His eyes and heart stung with a familiar pain and guilt weight down all at once on his conscious. "Yeah…I know."

"Master Bruce," Alfred continued, more gently this time. "I know that the loss of your parents still hurt you very much at this age as well. You both need each other." The butler then chuckled, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "This may be difficult to wrap around your turbulent fifteen-year-old head, but you are a parent. Stop trying to hack the League computers and go see your son."

"I will."

"Also. I know this may come as a challenge given the circumstances, but you've always been so fond of challenges: try to make the most of this experience. It's not everyday you get to be a kid again." With that final statement, Alfred wished his charge well and looked forward to his and Dick's return to the manor once they were cured. It wasn't until bedtime that Batman confronted Robin. Actually, Robin confronted Batman. The team was headed off to their rooms to call it a night and M'gann was taking a near-asleep Robin to his room.

"Wait," The child asked in an adorable yawn. He made a grabbing motion for Batman with his hand, his big galaxy-blue eyes pleading. (Batman didn't make Robin wear a mask; he was too young and it bothered the child.) M'gann carried Robin over to Batman. The baby bird grabbed the collar of the bat's sweater to pull him close, and then gave his daddy-bat a kiss on the cheek. "G'night."

For a split second the teen bat was taken off guard. M'gann blinked a few times wondering if she just saw what happened of if her mind was making it up. The other's behind her bit their tongues to not let out a sound. Batman moved to take Robin out of the Martian girl's arms, which the little bird was more than happy to oblige with. There was a question on the teen's mind that had been bothering him all day. "Robin, why did you jump in front of the canon?"

"W-hy?" The little boy repeated. His Romani accent was noticeable. "B'cus' you daddy." He yawned, making his hands into two little fists and rubbing his eyes. Batman's expression hardened with guilt.

"_I'm not your __**real**__ father."_ He mumbled back in Romani. _"And I'm not a very good foster father either."_

Robin shook his head stubbornly, his bangs whipping over his face. "You daddy here," He pointed to the teen billionaire's heart, "and here." He said, putting his small hand on his own heart. "Best daddy." A faint blush—hardly noticeably—flushed the ever-stoic Batman's cheeks. He hugged Robin closely, letting the little boy sleep on his shoulder, and headed off to bed with the boy.

"I'll put him to sleep, Miss Martian. See you in the morning."

The team waited for one full agonizing minute until they were sure Batman was out of earshot before they reacted to what they just saw.

"That was the **cutest** thing I've ever seen!" The green girl squealed, flying up into the air and floating back down.

Artemis shook Wally by the arm in disbelief. "Did you see Batman's FACE?! _Please_ tell me you saw his face! He was blushing, right? _The_ Batman just blushed in real life, right? Thanks to like, possibly the cutest little kid in all of history?"

"How did a child as innocent as Robin turn into such a prankster?" Conner wondered aloud to himself.

"This…this is…this is _way_ too much to process right now. WAY too much crazy for a day." Wally shook his head, smacking his own cheeks a few times. "Little Rob, kid Bats…I need to crash for at least the next ten hours."

"I think we _all_ could use a good night's rest. We continue watching them in the morning." Kaldur concurred. "And as I recall, Robin is an early bird, so the sooner we go to sleep, the better." Wally laughed at the unintentional pun as they walked off. "With any luck, it'll be as easy as it was today.

* * *

It began at breakfast.

Batman and Robin were up first, surprising the team with a large gourmet breakfast spread. They guaranteed they didn't make anything. The infamous Agent A delivered it, as well as the change of clothes they now wore. The teens didn't question it, they just ate. Everything was _delicious_; they thanked their lucky stars and whoever Agent A was. Robin was sitting up on an improve highchair, compromised of two of the couch cushions stacked on top of each other, next to his teenage father who was reading the paper. The child was dressed in a white- tan-and-blue-striped rugby shirt, jeans, and light-up _Transformers_ sneakers. Batman was in a rich blue-and-white-pinstripe button-down shirt under a black fair-isle sweater, jeans, simple black sneakers, and Robin's domino mask. A pair of sunglasses hung at the neck of his sweater. The two looked like siblings.

Robin decided it'd be fun to throw his remaining slices of pancake at his best friend across the table. To screw with him. Wally would be out of his sanity to call him out in front of his daddy. The first four pancake pieces Wally shrugged off as a joke. The next two he warned the little tyke to stop. The sixth…

Little Robin's aim was off, and the pancake piece ended up knocking off the pancake on Wally fork that he was about to eat. "Ok, dude, you need to stop right now or else—!" The redhead began, but stopped when he saw that Batman had stopped reading to shoot him a challenging glance. 'Go ahead,' it said, 'yell at him. I _dare_ you'. Robin's evil grin couldn't be more obvious.

"Is there a problem, Wally?"

"AHH! Oh. Hah. Haha…no. Actually, yes. Robin keeps flinging food at me!" He screamed, then chuckled, then whined, sticking his tongue out at his best friend. Robin did the same. Batman watched the exchange with apparent disinterest.

"Robin," The teen began in a warning tone. Even though the dark knight now shared their age, and he wasn't tall and dark and intimidating, the guy was still scary. The little bird beside him, however, was immune. Always was. "Play with your food is unacceptable if it's poorly wasted."

"HAH! Wait…was that an insult?" The speedster asked. He, Artemis, Kaldur, Conner, and M'gann watched Batman put his paper down and serve himself another pancake. He made sure to put plenty of maple syrup on it. Robin started to bounce in his seat excitedly, clapping his hands.

"If you're going to throw a pancake, make it count." Batman smirked. Before any of them could realize what he was about to do, the vigilante held up it plate and snapped it back, flinging the pancake straight into Wally's face. Robin's baby version of his cackle-laugh filled the room. Batman looked very smug of himself.

"Show me! Show me!" Robin delightedly exclaimed, grabbing more pancakes.

"What the heck?!" Wally cried as he peeled off the pancake from his face. "Did that _really_ just happen?"

"Hahahaha, Baywatch look! The syrup's in the shape of a bat!" The blonde archer beside him laughed, only to be promptly hit by another flying pancake.

"I did it!"

"Now, to fling two at a time—." Batman started showing him, but Kaldur stood up.

"That's enough, both of you." He said. The team commended their leader for his courage, but they all cowered when—for the first time ever—they saw Batman grin. It wasn't just any grin. It was the same familiar grin Robin wore from time to time: the one that said 'here comes trouble'.

"Or what, Kaldur'ahm?"

"I'll…I'll call the League."

"In case you haven't noticed, I was trying to do that all day yesterday. Be my guest." The bat smoothly replied.

Aqualad narrowed his eyes and stood tall; he was determined. "I will be forced to take you down if this behavior does not stop." Batman stood up with the stealth of a lion targeting its prey. He let out a short chuckle which made the Young Justice team start scrambling out of their seats. Robin cackled as well, arming himself with the two maple syrup bottles.

Hearing Batman chuckle was more horrifying than hearing Joker laugh.

"Take me down? Good luck."

"ATTACK!"

"TAKE COVER!"

Thus began the epic food fight of Batman and Robin vs. the team. Food flew everywhere. There was no safe hiding place. No matter where the teens turned, it seemed like either one ninja vigilante or the other was there to hit them. They tried to fight back, but it was no use. They even used their superpowers. It was that bad.

"Artemis, get down!" Kid Flash shouted, dolphin-diving to save the blonde archer from an incoming barrage of blueberries. The pair hid under the fallen flat-screen TV (again, it was _that_ bad) and waited for M'gann to fly past screaming with a hyper Robin following in bounds and flips. "We need backup!" He decided, frantically fishing out his cell phone and hitting the third number on speed dial.

"Who are you calling? Superman? Flash? Wonder Woman? The National Guard?" The girl guessed.

"The only person on the planet Batman ever trusted to babysit Robin. Hopefully, the person that can help us handle a little Rob _and_ a teen Bats."

* * *

Three hours later...

**Recognized: Red Arrow, B-06.**

"What the FUCK happened here?!" The red archer cursed in disbelief, his eyes as wide as they could be behind the domino mask.

From the Zeta-beat platforms he could see that the living room and kitchen were a disaster area. It looked like a grocery store gave birth to another grocery store...all over everything. The floors walls, even ceilings were covered in some kind of food. Different weapons that the red archer recognized from the Gothamite vigilantes' arsenal of supplies were scattered about. What looked to be like a spiderweb-like-substance was criss-crossed high up in the rafters and sealed off the other cave exits that were visible from his vantage point. Furniture was overturned. Streamers and rubble were everywhere. There was a huge hole in the wall to the cave's 'garage.' For some reason there was a goat in the room. The monitor room's computer was playing footage of the different Young Justice members from the surveillance cameras, each doing something otherwise embarrassing. Conner sleep-walking into his closet to sleep standing up; M'gann reenacting episodes of _Hello Megan_ in her room and using her pillow to pretend she was dancing with Superboy; Kaldur pretending to be a dolphin while he swan laps in the pool; Artemis sobbing over a terrible Vietnamese soap opera; the scenes went on. There was even him.

"Is that _me_? In my first costu— oh hell no, who took these videos?!"

"ROY!" Wally exclaimed in relief, running at full speed into the archer and taking him down in a bear hug. "Thank goodness you're here! You gotta help us!" Roy saw that not far behind Wally was Artemis, M'gann, and Kaldur.

The redhead not-so-gently peeled off his younger best friend from on top of him. "Let me get this straight. In a freak accident on a mission, both _Batman_ and _Robin_ were turned into kids, and now the League has you babysitting them until they find a solution?" He clarified.

"Uh-huh! But don't call it babysitting! Bats will go batty if you call it babysitting! Aqualad called it babysitting and we literally _just_ saved him from the robot piranhas in the swimming pool." Wally warned him. "They're a _menace._"

Roy raised his eyebrow, "Riiiight. Where are they now?" The team collectively shrugged. M'gann hugged Artemis in fear. "You don't know where they _are_?" He growled, sighing through his teeth. "Greeeat. People, the number one rule of watching a bat is to never _ever_ let them out of your sight. Haven't you learned anything from all the time you spend with Robin?" Now the four shared guilty looks. That's when Roy realized there were only four of them. "Wait...where's Superboy?"

That's when M'gann started to cry. Artemis hugged her tighter. "We...we don't know! They took him!"

"They took _Superboy_?"

"They're holding him hostage some—ahh!" The girl yelped when the lights went out. In fact, _all_ the power went out in the cave. In moments the emergency blacklights flooded on, but it only served to make the cave look eery and even more frightening than it already was. The group of teens huddled together, back-to-back, ready for anything.

"Welcome, Red Arrow," Batman's voice crackled over the intercom, "Thank you for joining your teammates on this training exercise."

"Woy's here?! WOOOY!"

"Let me speak, _pasare_, go play with Conner."

"Conner! What have you done to him?!"

"Training exercise? Batman, what is this about? You have no authority to be coming up with any exercises or giving us orders. The team is babysitting you and Robin, so _you two_ better quit while you're ahead, get down here, and help clean up this mess." Red Arrow called out, poised to fire. "You've got until three before you make me use your name. Your _real_ name."

"Dude, you got balls." KF whispered behind him. A shadow dropped down right in front of them, and from what little they could see they could tell it was Batman, in his Bat-suit. He stood toe-to-toe with the archer, a bat-glare like none other fixed in his eyes.

"One, I fund and operate this team, so I get to call the shots. Two, I'm older than you and more experienced. Three, this is _not babysitting_." He snarled. "And four, if you dare utter a syllable of my name, you're going to spend the next twelve hours regretting it."

Roy was undeterred. He aimed his arrow right at the dark knight. "Bru—." A barrage of paint balls suddenly hit the teens from nowhere, and Batman used Robin's distraction to tackle Roy to the ground and drag him away into the shadows. Two hostages caught, four to go.

The Young Justice team was right. There was no way this could end well.

* * *

A/n: Stay tuned for the epic conclusion of _'Trolling is Hereditary'_! I had a little trouble writing this because of keeping Batman in character, but I combined his basic musts and avoided the must-nots and filled in the gaps with either stuff Dick would do or Damian would at that age. To me, they are the closest to what I imagine Batman's personality might have been at that age if he were a superhero already. I think it turned out...passable. Harhar.

I leave you all with a parting gift. Tumblr user or not, got to the blog "batmanrunningawayfromshit". Fanfiction won't let me post the link, but just plug that into the url. It's very easy to find.

Greatest blog in the history of all blogs? I think so.

You're welcome.

Reviews are like bunny sex: you leave them here, and chapters multiply.

...I've had a long day ._. don't judge me.


	9. Trolling is Hereditary III

A/n: It hasn't even been ten chapters, and this story's already soared past 100 reviews.

I feel like crying. Crying tears of joy. How do I repay you all? HOW?!

You guys want to tinychat? I'll draw pictures and type up the next chapter live. Hell, if we do it on Saturday, we can discuss the new episode!

Speaking of which, episode #11 of YJI this weekend: feelings, feelings EVERYWHERE.

E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E.

(Supermartian please come back to meeee. Nightwing? The guy SERIOUSLY deserves a badass fight sequence that's all his and not chopped up into 10 seconds only. Foh rizzle. Do any of you guys read his comics? Foh. rizzle.)

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Nine - Trolling is Hereditary (Part III of III)_

* * *

This was bad. This was so very, _very_ bad.

This was the mantra that repeated itself over and over again in Artemis' head as a seven-year-old Robin dressed in his little Robin suit dragged her down the hall. She was completely filthy—she was hit with a lot of different things. Among the big ones were glow-in-the-dark, fluorescent paintball paint; various breakfast items; tar; soap-water; and nacho-cheese. She was bound by the wrists and ankles and rolled onto the sled that was tied to the goat. The very goat that dragged her down the hall to the monitor room. The same goat that Robin was riding on. The very same goat that he'd made Batman come up with from somewhere, which then Batman made Superboy milk it, which Superboy then had to use said milk to make lukewarm chocolate milk for Robin.

Apparently, Robin liked goat's milk a lot.

"Robin!" She squirmed in an attempt to get away, but it was no use. She hated to admit it, but the little bird caught her good. She felt like she was letting her friends down. For the remainder of the morning and early afternoon hours, Batman and Robin caught them all one by one. The blonde archer was their last hope, and she let them down. "Robin, c'mon, it doesn't have to be this way."

"I's kay, A'tmissy." The child said with his heavy accent and broken English. It just contributed to his cute factor, much to the strong girl's chagrin. "I's all part of plan."

Artemis' heart sunk. "Plan? What plan?" Robin didn't respond. He was too enthralled with his goat ride, cooing the animal to trot faster and hugging it's neck. They shortly reached the monitor room, where Artemis saw the others. All lined up against the was were, in the following order, Kaldur, Wally, and M'gann. Batman was walking in with Roy, pushing him to sit down next to the distressed Martian girl. Robin dropped off Artemis next to the other archer, gently rolling her off and sitting her up against the wall.

"Dadd—Batman! I found A'tmissy!" The little boy announced, grinning and giggling delightfully when his teenaged father pet his hair affectionately to commemorate his handiwork.

"Good work. Can you handle getting Superboy?"

"Da!"

"Then bring him here." The Bat asked. young Robin did a back-flip and skipped to his goat. He flew onto it's back, crying out like a cowboy, and rode away down a different hallway. Batman turned his attention to his captives. Since declaring war on their bodyguards this morning, the teen had changed from regular civilian clothes to his Bat-suit. Now, he was changed again. It was what a covert-ops spy would wear, but crossed between a militarized fashion and stylized to the Batman persona. Since he wasn't wearing the Bat-cowl, he had the domino mask on.

The teen smirked, his head tilting ever so slightly to the side and stray strands of his hair falling over his face. "Don't move." He requested. Immediately after, a video call from the Watchtower started ringing on the computers. "Right on time."

Batman went to pick up the call, standing very-self assured as he crossed his arms over his chest. He allowed the..._scenery_...behind him to completely sink in to his fellow heroes-in-arms before talking to them.

"What on EARTH is going on down there?!" Black Canary demanded on screen before her azure eyes went wide with horror. "Oh my..." Behind her, Wonder Woman walked into the picture. Her shock was just as great.

"Hera help us..." She breathed, stunned speechless.

"What's happening? Did you reach them?" Flash ran up to the screen. "Wally! What did you do to them?!"

"Uncle Barry, help!" The speedster shouted back. Batman didn't look back, he just growled. Wally promptly shut up.

"Bats, what's going on? Has the cave been attacked? Are you all alright?" Superman asked. The amount of Leaguers up at the Watchtower trying to get a look at the situation were more and more by the second. Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Captain Arrow, Captain Marvel, the list went on. "Where's Red Tornado?"

"He's...asleep." The vigilante answered cryptically.

"Batman, what the hell is going on down there? What did you do to the kids?"

"I call it a pop quiz: how to handle an emergency situation, such as if any of their teammates or members or the League were to fall under the control or a villain or become compromised." He answered smoothly. "They all failed, by the way. If anything, they only person who I'd give a D+ to would be Artemis. She lasted the longest."

"Batman, let them go right now." Diana narrowed her eyes at the man.

Batman _stuck out his tongue_ at the Amazonian princess, earning more than a few strange looks from more than a handful of Leaguers and all of the Young Justice team. "You think I'm going to follow orders from you just because I like—." The dark knight stopped himself quickly, quipping, "Never mind that! No, I will not. Not until you grant me access to the tower's computer systems."

"You have got to me kidding me, Bru—."

"Use my real name, and someone here suffers the consequence." Batman hissed before Green Lantern could finish his sentence, glaring coldly at the man he wasn't too friendly with. The dark knight hit a key on the keyboard, bringing up a live audio feed from another room in the cave. "Hear that?" He asked. There was a repetitive dull thud in a constant rhythm, with groans of pain. There were also a few sporadic giggles. "That's Superboy." The teen explained. "And Robin is with him, armed with a fragment of Kryptonite and the consumption of nine bottles of chocolate milk. I don't believe I need to remind you of all the times you babysat Robin as a child, but in case you do, just remember how difficult it is to keep a leash on him."

"Conner! Robin would never hurt him; let him go!" M'gann shouted, on the verge of tears. She and the others were outraged, struggling against their binds.

"Batman, this is your only warning. You and Robin stand down _immediately_ or else—."

"I am not going to listen to any orders you try to give me, so save your breath." The teen retorted, clicking on a few more keys. "If you're going to try and do that, then come down here and tell it to my face." With those final daring words, Batman shut off the video call, snickering to himself. He shook his head, typing a few more things on the computer. "Idiots."

Aqualad narrowed his eyes, raising an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Much to the Young Justice team's surprise, Batman turned around with a much more relaxed composure and pulled out a bat-a-rang to cut them loose. He undid the lock on the special cuffs M'gann and Kaldur wore as well. "If they were smart enough they would've realized that during that video conference I was recording all the background and white noise and a high-definition-frequency audio file. That allowed me to single out the key-sounds they typed and hit on their computer, which in turn I matched the pitches to the keys here and crossed-referenced it with the ones on file to identify the access code to reprogram the Zeta-beam platforms allowing Robin and I to leave the cave."

"...You did all that in a two-minute video call?"

"Don't be preposterous. Did you honestly think I spent the entire day yesterday trying to break into the watchtower mainframe? The laser canon made me younger, not dumber." Batman rolled his eyes behind the mask. He motioned for the teens to follow him. "The League believes that keeping Robin and I from pursuing the Brain is the right course of action, but they couldn't be more wrong. Brain managed to steal from Lex Luthor. That in itself is a daunting task to do. Judging by Luthor's behavior on the night of the incident, he has no qualms in destroying that canon if worse comes to worse. I will _not_ allow for such a thing to happen." He ground out.

"So...you're—?" Wally began asking uncertainly.

"Going after them, yes. And you are coming with us." The Bat said, leaving no room for argument even though Roy was about to try. "You guys _are_ my bodyguards until I'm cured. It will be a mission within a mission."

"Hold up. Are you telling us that all this," Roy gestured to the apocalyptic sight that was the cave, "Was a very long-winded and thought-out plan to break out of the cave from the beginning?" They took Batman's smirk as a yes.

"Mr. Batman, I got a question for ya. You taught Robin about loopholes, didn't you?" The speedster couldn't help but snort to himself.

"I didn't even have to; Robin's a fast learner." The teens reached the training room, following Batman inside. There, they found a completely unharmed Superboy with little Robin at the mats. Superboy would crouch down and toss Robin so high into the air the child could touch the ceiling. The little boy was smiling wide from ear to ear, and Conner himself was grinning. Once caught, Robin hugged the Kryptonian's neck and begged to go again. "Robin, Superboy, let's go."

"Conner, you're alright!" M'gann gushed in relief, flying over to the built teen.

"You've been here this entire time?!" Roy snarled in disbelief. Conner shrugged, not giving a damn.

"Well, I was going to go tell you guys the truth, but the kid asked nicely that I help." The black-haired boy-of-steel replied, sitting Robin up on his shoulders. Robin hugged his head from above, placing a kiss on the messy locks before flashing a gleeful and innocent smile at Roy. "Before you judge, you should listen to their deal. It's hard to pass up on. _Really_ hard."

"If you all don't mind," Batman interrupted, "We've got somewhere to be and we're wasting time. We need supplies before we go."

"Supplies? We have plenty of weapons and arsenal here in the cave, down in the weapons room."

"Not those weapons. Something a little more...high-tech."

* * *

The Bat-cave was _jaw-dropping_.

Roy and Wally weren't as impressed, because to the shock of Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian, and Artemis, the redheaded duo had already been to the Bat-cave. It felt like a betrayal to the four teens, but then they remembered that Roy and Wally were the second and third teens to become sidekicks to their mentors, meaning that they met each other earlier and thus had more history together.

"Woy, Woy, Woy, Woy!" Robin shouted from his perch on Conner's shoulders as they walked down the platform walkway from the Zeta-tube to the central command. He pointed across the way to a scale-model, realistically painted Tyrannosaurus Rex sculpture. "'Member the talking Leo-purr-o-don?" Roy nodded. Robin pointed off in another direction. "'And the gr-avity boo-sters?" Roy nodded again, chuckling when the boy laughed. There seemed to be a hidden meaning—a story—behind it all. "And Neverland?" Robin gasped. "Ba'man, can we go to Neverland?! Conner, you can fly in Neverland!" Batman didn't answer, his mind was working a mile a minute. So the teens turned to Roy for some sort of reply.

"I babysat Robin a lot back in the day," The red-headed adult explained. "Him and this idiot," He nodded at Kid Flash, smacking him lightly upside the head.

"Sounds like a lot happened." Aqualad pointed out, making Wally burst out laughing.

Red Arrow sighed heavily. "You have _no idea._"

"You mind filling us in on a story or two?" Artemis chuckled herself at seeing her fellow archer's expression.

"Maybe some other time."

Despite the Bat-cave being literally a bat cave, the hideout was decked out to the nines. Different walkways sprawled out and spiraled up or down to different platforms at different levels, each hosting some form of aid or weaponry to the shadow vigilante of Gotham and his night bird. It reached out as far as their eyes could see in the dark. Up in the crevices of the stalagmites were hundreds of thousands of bats.

Batman led the young heroes to a massive computer hub mounted on the wall of the cave it had three enormous screens, surrounding them in a way that made them feel like they were almost boxed in. Three large consoles—keyboards and more buttons than they could probably count in a day—lay out beneath the screens. In the middle of the computer platform was a large glass table. Thanks to it's magnetic foot, it hovered off the ground.

"Team, gather 'round." The dark knight said as he approached the computer. They stood by the floating glass table as the three monitors sprung to life, displaying numerous amounts and detailed information about the happenings in Gotham city and the world. "Computer, list the last thirty known hits made by the Brain." The man commanded. Shortly after getting what he desired, he skimmed over the information, pulling out what he seemed to spot a connection in. "Access Watchtower files, most recent encounter. Cross-reference to coinciding activities with Lex Luthor, trace out all similarities."

"You computer can do all that by itself?" Miss Martian blinked in stupor. "Impressive."

"It's running slow; needs an upgrade." Batman commented dismissively. The teens all made one comment or another how that was utterly pointless to say, since this was still the most impressive computer they've ever seen operate.

"Why don't we have one of these back at the cave?" Conner asked. Robin itched to be set down on the floating table which was very unsettling to the Kryptonian boy. Skeptically, he stood the little boy on the glass, but he didn't actually let go until he knew for certain the table wouldn't sink or tip. "Does the Watchtower have one?"

"No need. The work that this computer does is the equivalent to the work of the resources found in both the cave and the tower."

"Yeah, but, this would make it easier." Artemis argued, watching slightly disturbed at the strange yoga poses Robin was doing on the table. Should a seven-year-old be able to bend that way?

"Yes, and having super-human abilities would make fighting crime easier as well, yet we still manage quite well, do we not, Artemis?" The bat retorted with ease, tutting once when he found what he was looking for. He left the computer and joined the team at the table. "Computer, real-time holo-map of Bordeaux, Aquitaine district, France." On the glass table Robin was on, a 3-D map of a city popped up around the little boy. Robin gasped in surprise, but quickly smiled and stood up tall. He let our a roar, stomping around with his arms out in front of him and his hands like claws, stomping on miniature holographic cars and trees. The team started in fascination, poking the holograms in question. Their fingers went through the projections. It was awesome.

"The Brain and his men have escaped to France with the laser canon. Thanks to international law the setback it's providing Luthor to reach him is barely enough time for us to get out there and locate the canon ourselves. The goal is—Robin, stop pretending you're Godzilla, you're distracting everyone." The black-haired teen reprimanded, pulling his son off the table and carrying him in his arms. Robin idly traced the edges of the domino mask on his father's face. "The goal is simple. Tonight, we fly out to France to turn Robin and I back to normal. Our only concern is getting in and out of their base safely. Once Robin and I are returned to normal, we destroy the canon and come home."

The six teens nodded determinedly. "What's the plan?" Wally asked, speaking for all of them. Batman pointed behind them, to a few pristine glass cases with various versions (old, new, and element-specific) of the Bat-suit.

"As I recall, you wanted to be a bat back when you were a little younger."

Wally couldn't help but shout in excitement, jumping in place. Roy and Artemis simultaneously smacked him to stand still. "Are you serious?! All the cool, awesome suits and tech you and Rob use, we get to use it?!"

"_Some_ of it, yes."

"Aww, yeah!"

* * *

**'Guys, this is like, the ultimate form of trolling. There are seven Batmans. We are **_**seven**_** Batmans!'** Kid Flash said over the mind link, looking at a fuzzy reflection of his in a dirty window. He was in a costume that was similar to his speedster attire since those adaptions were required, lest he wanted to be running around nude. However, it was all black and gray, it's silhouette obviously mirroring the Batman's costume. He didn't have a cape or cowl; the mask he was was a cross-adaptation between Robin's domino mask and Batman's cowl, with the little bat ears sticking up. **'We're confusing the **_**hell**_** out of these guys right now! Look at them! They're all over the place' **He shouted, running through the warehouse and planting bat-boomers.

**'There's only one Batman, KF. Don't forget that he can hear you over the psychic link.'** Miss Martian said.

**'You know what I mean, beautiful. Hey, where is the dynamic duo anyway? Shouldn't they be in here?'**

**'Taking care of security outside with Aqualad.'** Superboy chimed in, letting out an angry growl and he swung a thug around and threw him into a group of others. A huge explosion went off outside that made the ground shake. They heard Batman give Robin's signature cackle, and Robin's adorable little laughs in a more evil tone. **'Should he really have given a seven-year-old explosives?'**

**'I've learned it's best not to question Batman's parenting, Supey.'**

**'Is there something wrong with my parenting, Wallace?'**

**'N-no, nothing, sir! Damnit, psychic link!'**

**'I didn't think it was possible, but Batman makes arrows that are...**_**better**_** than Green's.'** Red arrow said, impression clear in his tone as he fired a consecutive trio of arrows at a handful of goons hot on their tail. He too was in a stealth, stylized costume to look like a bat. He opted to keep his domino mask instead of using the ones with the bat ears. Wally pointed out earlier how he kind of looked like _Hawkeye_ from the _Avengers_ movie, and Artemis (sporting a similar outfit, but with a bat-ear mask) looked like an archer version of _Black Widow_.

**'Don't tell him that. He just might cry.'** Artemis snorted from her watch point, shooting an arrow straight up in the air to send out a blinding flare. Thanks to one of the _dozens_ of settings in the bat-masks, an automatic filter turned their lenses into sun-glass lenses, so they weren't fazed by the light. Flying above the crates and teens, Miss Martian, in her own bat-suit (easily the 'girliest'), Telekinetically blasted most of the villains away.

**'He's a baby, he can suck it up.'** Roy mentally rolled his eyes.

**'Team on point, Brain and his immediate henchman have exited the back of the warehouse you've raided. Circle around and trap him in. They have the canon; be cautious.'** Aqualad ordered. The team ran outside, diving into the fray of villains and fighting valiantly against them. Left and right, they were a blur of blacks and grays. Except for Robin. He was dancing around their attacks, never too far from one of his teammates who were adamant to protect their little baby bird, frustrating the Frenchmen to no end.

"S'arrêter!" One of them spat, curling his fist as he snarled. (("Stand still!")) Much to his shock, Robin actually stopped moving. He understood what he said.

"Pourquoi?" The child blinked, letting his head tilt to the side. (("Why?")) He grinned, "Voulez-vous jouer à un jeu?" (("Would you like to play a game?")) He jumped up, doing two front-flips, and kicking the man's head down on the second flip. The man fell to the ground unconscious. "Désolé, je suis occupé." (("Sorry, I'm occupied.")) Just as another man was about to hit Robin from behind, KF swooped past the two and picked up his best friend.

"Dude, you speak French too? How many languages do you know?" Robin hummed in thought, counting on his fingers.

"This many!"

**'Kid Flash, do you have Robin?'**

**'Holding him right now.'**

**'Bring him to the shipping docks, we've found the canon.'** Batman said. **'Double-time, we need back-up.'**

**'You got it, Bats. Speedy is my middle name! Well, actually, it's Roy's.'**

**'No it's **_**not**_**!'** Red Arrow snapped at him.

The pair of best friends ran to join the others at the docking bay where there was a line of trucks parked. He spotted one with the back open and the team protecting it. He sped there, finding Batman inside. "Go help the team, we've got this covered." Batman said, working away on the canon. Kid Flash gently dropped off his best friend and went back to kicking butt alongside his teammates. Robin scampered up to stand beside Batman, watching with big eyes behind a mask that was a little too big for his cherub face. The little boy was suddenly pulled into his father's arms, and the two ducked behind the canon to avoid gunfire. He curled into a ball, his little hands holding onto his father's cape in fists.

"Robin, you have to finish reprogramming the canon yourself." Batman told the child, who shook his head no. "If I don't hold these men off, they could end up damaging the canon. We can't afford that risk." Robin was stubborn, he hugged the stoic teen more tightly.

"No!" He cried. "Stay!"

"_Pasare_," Batman said, lifting Robin's face so he could look the boy in the eye. He'd taken off his cowl. Batman _never_ took off his cowl on the field. Bruce Wayne gazed down at the boy with a look that transmitted all his confidence to the child. "I promise to you that nothing bad will happen, OK? I made a mistake the other night and because of it you were put in danger. I have to fix that." The teen admitted, brushing his son's bangs out of his eyes. "But I'll need your help. Can you do that?" Robin nodded, and Bruce smiled softly at the child, making the little boy feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Bruce rarely smiled, so when he did smile—and smiled because of _him_—Robin felt like he could soar. "Here's the formula settings I've developed based on the canon's blueprints, the League's findings, and what I could hack off Luthor and Brain. I've input the data up to here; plug in the rest."

Robin nodded, watching his father don the cowl again. "Ok. Careful, daddy." With a whoosh Batman jumped up over the gunfire, charging out at the assailants. Robin immediately went to work, his little fingers nimbly flying across the keys. He finished quickly, pushing the button that made the canon start to hum. It was charging up for a single blast. "Batman!" Robin shouted, looking around, but he couldn't spot his father. His heart clenched. They only had this _one_ shot. "BAT—!" Batman dropped down, lifting his son into his arms, and jumped in front of the canon as it went off. Both boys braced for impact.

Outside, the Young Justice team was facing off against the Brain and Monsieur Mallah. They were winded, and it was starting to show. One by one, the teens fell, scrambling to regroup. "Pity," The Brain's monotone, robotic voice said in dry humor. "Such perfect fighting specimens so poorly wasted in your terrible excuse of a quest for peace." He sighed. "Monsieur Mallah, would you do the honor of finishing off these young heroes?"

"It would be my pleasure, monsieur." The giant gorilla chuckled darkly, picking up Superboy by the back of his shirt. He raised his fist, ready to punch him. "Bonne nuit, Superboy."

"Hahahahha...!" A cackle rang. Robin dropped down from the sky, nailing a kick in the gorilla's face and making him fall back with a loud thud. He flipped back, landing beside Superboy, and standing tall. "The only one who's getting a good night's sleep tonight is you, monkey breath." He turned around to glance at his teammates over his shoulders. "Hey guys, miss me?"

"Robin!" They shouted, ecstatic.

The boy wonder smirked, holding a finger up. "One second. Hey, Brain!" He shouted. "You like riddles, don't you? I'm a guy that appreciates wordplay, you're an super-intelligent piece of muscle meat, I'm sure you'll get a _punch_ out of this one." The hacker said. "What's black, rock-hard, and red all over?

Brain didn't get the chance to answer. Over their heads, a dark shadow in the shape of a bat swooped down, landing with bone-crushing force on the super-villain and crushing the metal of it's container beneath his feet. Batman's fist hurtled through the reinforced glass of Brain's shield, squashing him inside. He then released the electric charge his suit could give off, effectively putting the Brain in a coma.

"My fist."

* * *

It wasn't fair. After everything that happened, _Robin_ had to help clean up the cave! Ok, sure, some of it was his fault...alright, a LOT of it was his fault. But that wasn't the point. How come he was stuck with the team cleaning up the place, and Batman got off scot-free? Even Roy had to help clean up!

_'The cave is __**your**__ headquarters with the team. It is your responsibility to care for it, not mine.'_

Oh yeah, loopholes. Stupid loopholes. Sometimes Robin forgot Batman knew about those.

The team asked him a lot of questions, all of which he either didn't answer or gave some sort of smart comment that didn't really answer their question. It'd been a week since he was turned into a child and back to normal again, and only today did it look like they would _finally_ be done with cleaning the place.

**Recognized: Batman, 0-2.**

The teams heads snapped up to attention at the dark knight that stepped through. As far as they knew, they didn't have any missions for today. The man stood there, a silent call for the young heroes to gather. When they did, he passed out a flash drive to each of them. They inspected it curiously. Even Robin seemed oblivious.

"What is this for?" M'gann inquired.

"A thank you gift, for all your hard work last week." The man's deep bass voice said earnestly, which caught them all by surprise. "I reviewed the surveillance footage from last week. You all suffered through quite a bit at the hands and mind of my younger self. Robin as well." He turned to head back up to the Watchtower at the Zeta-beam platform.

Superboy narrowed his eyes, unimpressed. "So what, you think that giving us this little thing is good enough? Why didn't you get one of your millions of gadgets and fix the cave for us?!" Robin swiped the flash-drive from his hot-headed teammate's hand, plugging it into his gauntlet computer.

"Not my protocol." The vigilante answered, disappearing in the light of the Zeta-beam.

"What is it anyway?" M'gann asked. Robin started laughing in genuine amusement, covering his mouth to not laugh louder. They all huddled around Robin, peering at the little screen. One by one, they all started laughing. "Is that?"

"Oh, man," Wally cackled, kissing his own flash drive. "If that video's got _Superman_ doing some pretty embarrassing things, I can only imagine what sort of dirt your dad got on my uncle." He kissed the flash drive again, giving Robin a noogie. Batman had given them blackmail on every single one of their mentors.

"Do I have the greatest mentor or what?" The boy grinned. Before zipping off to see the footage of his uncle doing heaven-knows-what, Wally nudged his best friend lightly and handed him a photo. "What's—?"

Robin smiled. If Batman knew of this photo's existence, he'd kill Wally for it. Then again, he _was_ the world's greatest detective. Knowing him, he might already have a copy of his own. Still, Robin cherished it. It was a picture of him and Batman on the couch, de-aged, his seven-year-old self sleeping contently on his fifteen-year-old father's lap. Bruce had his head resting on his own as he slept, and hugged Dick securely even in sleep.

"Got this the other night while Bats was putting you to sleep. Souvenir."

* * *

A/n: This concludes the trilogy of teen Batman and kid Robin. Hope you all enjoyed it!

Don't be sad, next chapter we'll have the patiently awaited debut of Robin in Gotham city. Which means more daddybats and baby Robin galore! There'll be Commissioner Gordon, a few classic Batman bad guys, and who knows, I might even throw in Catwoman for shits and giggles!

As always, thank you kindly for reading, and please review!

(btw...I was serious about the tinychat thing I mentioned up top. idk how to thank you all! -melts into weeping puddle of happiness-)

(Also, if any of you speak French and I messed up the French, could you tell me? It's my fourth-ish language...I'm dabbling in it and Italian, I can't decide which to start first. Thanks!)


	10. Define Hero

A/n: I apologize for the one week delay in updates. School's started, projects are coming in and being whipped out, and I shockingly have a social life...that consists of movie-going, cosplay-making, and being a complete goofball with friends. Somewhere in the middle of all that is work. And, like I said, school. Yay me? My aim is to update twice weekly from here-on out. A day of the week will not be defined. Every time I update, expect a new chapter within the following three days. So for example, after today, expect the next chapter to be out Saturday.

Guys. Episode 12. The team has no Mt. Justice. No Hall of Justice. What's next, no Watchtower?!

...Wait..._wait_. Oh, fuck no. NO. I TAKE THAT BACK. DON'T DESTROY THE WATCHTOWER.

(Unless that means everyone gets to operate from the Bat-cave.)

(Wait, that's still bad.)

(Can they all go to the Bat-cave next?)

(No brain, don't root for the Watchtower to be destroyed _just _so we can get some Bat-cave action. Go watch some Batman animated series for that.)

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Ten — Define Hero  
(Robin's Big Debut)_

* * *

Tonight was the night. And what a glorious night it would be.

Today was young Dick Grayson-Wayne's ninth birthday. One would think that, given it was his birthday, and given that his new father could quite literally give him whatever his heart desired, that the young acrobat would be all over spoiling himself silly. Yet no; Dick didn't grow up with spoils, and quite honestly it never mattered to him. His humble upbringing in the circus taught him great morals: one of which material items have no value no matter what the price tag may say. If it's not important in your heart, it's not important at all.

That was why this morning, when a very sleepy Dick stumbled his way down to breakfast and slurped his cereal up lazily, he nearly choked on the colorfully shaped grains. Bruce was running late for work, and it was to personally give the boy his birthday gift: a domino mask. This was it. This was _finally_ it. He'd "graduated;" passed; deemed himself worthy enough to run alongside the infamously famous dark knight.

Bruce was so shocked and horrified he had to give Dick the Heimlich maneuver, almost reconsidering his choice of letting the boy go out patrolling with him that evening. Alfred chortled to himself as the galaxy-blue eyed boy made a scene, imploring that Bruce still let him go. He was so caught up in his pleading that he practically swallowed down the rest of his cereal in one go, racing upstairs to change and finish all his homework before noon. That way, he could get in a workout warm-up before Bruce came home.

"I'm glad you've finally allowed Master Dick to join your nightly crusades. I don't think I could handle another day of rock music and gunfire blaring through this house on surround sound." Alfred mentioned as Dick ran off, handing his charge his routine morning mug of coffee. The billionaire raised a questioning eyebrow. "You mean he hasn't told you? Ever since the night he saved you from Lady Shiva and you consequently allowing him to train with you, he's been immersing himself into the hero role in a very…well, a manner which I believe you would've done if you'd taken up the cowl earlier in life."

"…Which would be…?"

"Aside from the numerous archives you have on the known heroes in the world down in the Bat-cave, he's been reading quite a lot of comic books, Master Bruce. He's been watching superhero movies as well. I can't tell you how many times he's watched _Iron Man_." The butler sighed in a way that said that Dick had watched the movie _too_ many times. "He watches quite a lot of anime as well. Last month it took me a week to explain to him that the lesson on _chi_ and concentration was not the same as the _chakra_ in something called _Naruto_. Apparently, the show convinced him that he could walk on water if he focused his chi to the bottom of his feet. Master Dick also believes that Superman is the long-lost cousin of someone called…_Goku_."

Bruce couldn't help but smirk. "What makes you say that I would be inspired by cartoons and comics?"

"Shall I begin with the costume or with your secret hideout, Sir?" Alfred quipped in amusement, making Bruce scowl the closest thing the man ever came to a pout. "All jokes aside, Master Bruce, I think you should have a serious talk with the boy before leaving. These movies and TV shows have had quite an impact on him and I wouldn't want that to compromise his well-being or your own. Not to mention that some of Master Dick's viewing choices were…perhaps a bit past his age and maturity level."

Bruce waved the elder man off dismissively as he left. "Sure, I'll take care of it. I've got to head out; I'm running late as is and I've got a meeting. Have a good day, Alfred."

"Good day, Master Bruce." Alfred called back, mumbling to himself, "He's going to forget about it…"

* * *

"_A bank robbery?! Yes! I've always wanted to do a bank robbery!"_

"_Robin, what part of radio silence did you not understand?"_

"_Right, sorry."_

"_Master Bruce, should I be concerned that a nine-year-old is excited over a bank robbery?"_ Alfred inquired over the comm link. From his perch high-up on the building, the dark knight rolled his eyes behind the cowl. His low, humming growl was carried away by the wind, nearly impossible to hear. He gazed down to the street below, tapping the side of his right temple so that the lens in his cowl could zoom in on the activity below and assess the situation. It was the Gotham City East-Side bank building. The street was cleared, and the entire block was surrounded with GCPD courtesy of Commissioner Gordon. Inside were hostages and the criminals behind the job. The hostages were bankers that, for the past week, were dropping of the radar like flies. After some effortless research, the caped crusader discovered it was because they all held entry access to the bank vaults. A little more digging and he found that the money these people were after was the latest trust fund billionaire Bruce Wayne deposited for the medical departments of Gotham.

How ironic.

Switching to thermal vision, Batman peered into the building and starting counting. One dozen…two-dozen hostages…one, two, three…another dozen or so of goons…and—he paused. "Bane." He murmured to himself. He'd recognize that huge, hulking mass of a criminal anywhere. The guy was likely looking to steal the money to invest in a higher-grade formula of his venom. He looked back outside, switching back to the eagle-eye cam when his wire-tap to the police department's radio caught his attention. For some reason, Commissioner Gordon went inside.

"_Commissioner!"_ Robin stage-whispered, audibly voicing Batman's frustration. _"What does he think he's doing?"_ He asked. The little bird was on the same building as his mentor, a story below him on a gargoyle. _"I've got this!"_ He remarked with confidence, diving off he gargoyle as if there were a pool below him.

"_Robin!"_ Batman said through the link, but it was no use. In the blink of an eye, the boy had broken through a window of the bank and disappeared inside. Even if he shouted Robin wouldn't have heard. He was blasting _AC/DC_ on the built-in speakers of his domino mask.

"_I warned you about the Iron Man movies."_ Alfred said in an I-told-you-so tone of voice. This time, the butler _did_ hear Batman growl in disdain.

* * *

Commissioner Gordon didn't admit to making mistakes easily. He was stubborn as a mule. He liked to call it perseverance. When his daughter, Barbara, pulled the stubborn act on him, he called it annoying. Like father, like daughter, he supposed. Yet tonight, he admitted to himself that he made a pretty stupid choice that landed him as a hostage as well. Come morning the press was going to eat this up.

The man was tied up with the other hostages; they sat in a circle, grouped together at the center of the gleaming tile floor of the bank. With the exception of the sparse lights that remained on a constant twenty-four hours, the building was dark. The men and women around him were terrified. He could sense it, no matter how well some of them hid it. These people needed a beacon of hope to latch onto. This was why the man sat with his back straight and chest high. He'd shoulder their fears, for he knew he always had someone to rely on in the city. He just hoped that someone wasn't too reoccupied in some other part of Gotham, dealing with a worse criminal. Or, for that matter, off with the Justice League.

If that were the case, they were doomed.

"Mira, ese," One of the thugs said with his thick Spanish accent. He dragged a young child behind him, tied up, that to the Commissioner looked to be no older than seven. The hostages watched on in silence as the thug that watched them conversed. "I found this one out back trying to get to Bane."

The second thug stitched his brows together, picking up the boy by the nape of his cape. His tobacco-scented breath made the boy's nose shrivel. He smirked, revealing aluminum and yellowed teeth through his ski-mask. "You telling me this little kid got past Julio? Ha!"

"Considering _Julio_'s security was sub-par, si, ese, and it was very easy." The black-haired boy retorted with a mocking grin of his own. Thug two was not impressed.

"Oh really? And just what do you think you're doing here, _Peter Pan_?" The man laughed with his partner in crime. The other thugs, with their weapons trained on the hostages, shared the laugh as well.

"I came for the party." The boy grinned as he was lifted higher in the air. The men gazed at him curiously. He wore something they'd never seen anywhere before. A scarlet-red tunic-vest, red and green-black pants, and a black cape with a canary-yellow lining. His gauntlets and shoes (steel-toed) looked like they could pack quite a punch. Yet he was so tiny. Fit, yes, they could see that, but tiny nonetheless. On his face, beneath a messy mop of black hair and bangs, there was a green-black domino mask concealing his eyes. The child seemed undeterred by the criminals that were scaring the hell out of the hostages. "Say, can I ask you something personal? If this was the last birthday party you were going to have, what would you do?"

The man sneered, "If this some sort of joke, kid?" The boy shook his head no. The man wasn't convinced. "Who are you working for?"

"Er, by the end of the night? Probably no one. I think I'm already fired, just not technically."

Roughly grabbing the child from his friend, the second thug tossed him with the rest of the hostages. "Well, _Pan_, since you were so keen to join us, how about you spend the party as another hostage?" He cackled. The child in costume sat up with ease, a big smile on his face.

"Yes! I've always wanted to be a damsel in distress!" He piped up, contorting so that he flipped through his arms and his bound wrists were now in front of him, not behind him. A click went off in his gauntlets, causing three sharp blades to shoot out from the sides of the gloves and cut through the ropes like butter. He pulled off the ropes from his ankles with just as much ease. "Unfortunately, I have no time to waste with that , I _kind of_ jumped the gun to be here and if I waste any more time talking with you guys—."

The gunmen trained their weapons on the boy. "Don't move, kid!"

"—I'm going to be grounded for _twice_ as long as I'm going to be grounded. Which is forever. Which means I'll be grounded forever-ever. Wait…can a double-positive be a negative? Like, instead of forever, it's for_never_? Cause if it is—."

"Hands on your head, or we'll shoot!"

"—that would be _so_ cool, cause then I wouldn't be grounded!"

Impatience reaching its limit, one of the gunmen sticks the barrel of his weapon on a woman's head, making her whimper loudly. "Alright, hijo, I don't know who you think you are, but you're about to make this lady _very_ unhappy, comprende?" The boy's eyes narrowed in a bone-chilling glare that made this new gunman, who until this that moment hadn't talked, flinch. His smirk was almost as terrifying as the Joker's on a good day. A little kid shouldn't look that...devious.

"Who are you?" A new, warped voice asked as he stepped out from the hall that led towards the vaults. It was Bane. Beside the child, Commissioner Gordon, scared for his citizens' well-being, tugged on the boy's cape to get him to be quiet. He was trying to think of the quickest way out of this situation, and right now this kid was on the fast-track to getting them all killed.

"Who? Who is but the form following the function of what, and what I am in a man in a mask."

"Yes. I can see that." The masked man drawled in an obvious tone. The child giggled again. It was a strange giggle, almost like it was mocking and had the undertone of a cackle.

"I know you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation. I'm merely pointing out the paradox of asking a masked stranger who he is. That is the point of the mask, is it not? Why else would _you_ be wearing one?" The ebony-haired boy smartly retorted. "But I suppose that since I know who you are, Bane, that it's only that you know who I am before I sent you back to Blackgate Prison." With a flourish of a cart-wheel, the acrobat somersaulted forward to land in the middle of all the criminals present. He bowed theatrically, his voice loud and clear.

"Regards!" He began. "In view: a reserved, reliable young hero, regardlessly rendered the rank of 'reprobate refugee' by the media in lieu of an event I'm really reluctant to speak of—and would rather restrain from memory—resolutely rescued by a knight in both black and white despite the risks of ruining his reputation. Reports of this remarkably rueful tale roused the relentlessly regardful society of Gotham and the rest of the world, rendering the ruined, remorseful acrobat to feel an awful lot like rubbish. Ransacked of true inner peace, a realization rested itself upon the boy's new guardian. This riffraff, the back-and-forth rifling of rumors with no regards to the raw pain the boy felt and he could relate with, was restricting any real recuperation from him, and thus the child needed a release: revenge.

"Revenge upon the rotten, repulsive, repugnant man that removed the only riches boy ever retained. Readily, the revelation came, and with it the relief that the knight recognized these racking repines of misery the boy felt for far too long. With the revelation rose the opportunity of a lifetime to regain control, to rise and run alongside the ranks of Batman, and a resounding ratification for the reborn resolve of a newborn hero. Regardless of relations and remoteness of the residents of this ridiculously roomy rock we reside on, upon donning the mask and cape he refused—no, rejected— to relent against villains lest should he remain the last man standing. For he, that is I, is a revolutionary of revenge, a radical rebel for reform, and a revisionary rioter. Because I can relate to the recreancy of rejection, and I want people to realize as I did that they can relinquish that remorse and that retreating is never the only response."

The boy pulled out a set of disc-shaped shuriken from his canary-yellow utility belt, spinning them around his fingers idly. He gave the speechless audience an adorably crooked smile and another of his cackle-infused giggles. "Hehe, whoops, I just realized I remitted my name...Sorry. Rewind and restart: you may call me Robin."

"...What?" Another thug finally asked in the dead silence. Robin rolled his eyes behind the mask, letting out an impatient scowl.

"_Robin, ese_." He retorted mockingly. "My name is Robin, and after tonight I'm sure you'll never forget it."

Commissioner Gordon had dozens of questions floating around in his mind, but the first he spat out was "Were you spoon-fed a dictionary or something?"

Robin chuckled to himself, "You_ could_ say that."

Bane was not impressed. He was frustrated. "What the...the hell did you just say to me?"

"Rounding the really important facts, the brief but bewildering becoming of my persona." He grinned. "Playing with the alliteration of the letter R. I can recite it in almost every letter of the alphabet, take your pick. For example," His grin turned evil. He pulled out a pair of collapsible eskrima sticks from his utility belt as the lights went out. " Have you heard the rhyme of big, bad Bane? The broad and brute bully who can't spell his own name? For how can a belligerent so boastful and boding be so brainless that he plans to 'borrow' from the banks and cannot even beguile such a simple security system? Was it too bamboozling for your itty-bitty brain, bozo?"

From the rafters above, a large shadow swooped down on Bane and his compadres and a smoke screen filled the room. Robin used his mentors distraction to spring all the hostages free and safely guide them to the nearest exit. He kept the other thugs away as he helped the people reach the GCPD outside. One ten-minute fight and fifteen tied-up criminals later, the bank was liberated once again and the money recovered.

Batman grilled Robin the entire car ride back to the cave for his excited and impulsive behavior. He still had to see Commissioner Gordon about tonights events. Breaking the news that the infamous Batman now had a very enthusiastic nine-year-old sidekick suddenly became a much more daunting task. However, despite the slight hiccup, the patrol had gone relatively well. And neither Batman or Bruce could stay angry at the little boy for long.

"It's all over the news," Alfred greeted them at the computers in the cave. Dick's smile stretched from ear to ear when he saw what was on the news. The bank and Bane and Gordon and Batman and _him_. Alfred patted his shoulder in approval. "They're calling you the boy wonder. Not even a full nights worth of work and it seems as though you've already earned yourself a small fanbase, Master Dick."

"Awesooome." He breathed, elated.

"I also heard your monologuing, sir. I wouldn't say that catchphrases are your style, but if you're going to attempt it they should be short, simple, and straight to the point. Preferably, its best that you don't talk at all, but seeing as how that's never going to hate to happen..."

"Short, simple, straight to the point. Got it." Dick nodded, hugging Alfred and Bruce goodnight. He ran up the manor shouting about being the boy wonder. "I'm a hero!"

* * *

The following night, Batman let Robin go patrol again. He couldn't bear to turn down the kid. This time around, the robbery involved the Penguin and his men. There was a car chase that, if Robin were in the Bat-mobile he would've described, was of epic proportions. However, the caped crusader was an intelligent man and predicted Penguins moves, so he sent his new young protégé to where the action would take place to lay out their trap. Before reaching the docks, Batman glanced at the dashboard of his vehicle, and decided on a whim to gift-wrap the villains for Robin.

He had some new toys to test, so why not?

This was how all five of Penguin's goons wound up rolling into the open hangar of the warehouse due to the explosion of their escape truck. They rolled right up to young Robin's feet. "Welcome, gents! So glad you could make it!" The five men looked up wearily. Penguin gave sarcastically amused grin.

"Let me guess. You're the Bats new little brat everyone's talking about. The boy Wonder, Robin."

"Yup, that's my name!"

One of the men snorted, "I heard you're a freak that spits out vocabulary words for fun. Why don't you go home and practice for your spelling bee, kid? I don't want to have to kick your ass."

Robin narrowed his eyes into his own bat-glare. It was one thing to insult him, but insulting his grammar (his English in general) was like insulting Alfred. And NOBODY insulted Alfred on his watch. Especially since his grandfather figure butler did such a good job of teaching him English, among dozens of other things. He crouched down so he was eye level with the robbers. "You don't enjoy smart talk and eloquent english? Fine, then allow me to make this very clear and very simple. If you talk crap one more time, _your head_ is going up _his ass_, _his head_ is going up _that dude's ass_," He pointed with calm, "Both _their heads_ are going up _each others ass_ yin-yang style, and Penguin's head with that huge pointy nose will go up your ass. OK pumpkin?" Penguin was shaking his head no and raising his hands up in surrender, but his henchman was stupid.

"If that supposed to scare me, birdy?"

Robin's smile was almost sadistic. "It is." He grabbed the guy by the collar as well as his friend, proceeding to punch the daylights out of them.

Back at the cave, an hour later...

"Master Richard! I am appalled! We do not use that sort of language under any circumstances in this household, do you hear me?" Alfred scolded as soon as the Bat and Bird pulled into the cave and killed the engine of the Bat-mobile. Batman had been surprisingly quiet about Dick's use of foul language, which scared the little acrobat. He didn't know how angry his foster father was, and that scared him. "Where did you learn to say such a thing? Certainly not in this household, I'm sure."

"I, er, saw it in a superhero movie...?" Robin meekly offered, playing with his gauntlets as he slowly took them off. He took his time on purpose; he didn't want to make eye contact with the butler that was spitting hot coals.

Now Alfred turned his disapproval to Bruce. "What did I tell you, Master Bruce? I warned you to speak to him about his movie choices, did I not? They've been a bad influence." He stopped, saw that his charge wasn't making eye contact with him either. Except he saw _why_. "Mas...Are you _smiling_?"

Dick's head snapped up in surprise, trying to get a better look at the dark knight's face. He wasn't _smiling,_ per se, but he most definitely was grinning. Now the boy was really confused. Batman cleared his throat, "I have to agree with Alfred, Dick. Cursing is not allowed in this household, ever." Alfred narrowed his eyes in a glare, demanding an explanation. "You have to admit, though, that it's a little amusing."

"A little amusing?" Alfred repeated, "You think the boy tying those men up face-to-buttocks and forcing them to fart in each other's face is amusing?"

"Well, _that too_, but I was referring to how Dick chose to talk intelligently to Bane▬who's not so intelligent▬and then dumbed it down for Penguin▬who's fairly clever."

"You should thank your stars he did, otherwise the clues Dick left in his little speech might've actually tipped off your enemies to your real identities." Alfred pointed out, stomping back upstairs. "Since you _boys_ found tonight's events _amusing_, I'll be putting away the cookies I made for you. Good evening Master Bruce, Master Dick."

Up until that moment, Dick had been stifling giggles, relieved that his father wasn't mad at him, and Bruce had been biting back his grin as much as he could. When Alfred mentioned the cookies, their amusement vanished. Dick's face fell, as if he'd been deeply betrayed, and Bruce looked peeved.

"Richard, you're grounded."

* * *

On the third night, Batman had a heart-to-heart with Robin on their way to work...work being, of course, hunting down criminals and making them wet themselves. Best part of the job.

"Robin, Batman and Robin do not have catch-phrases."

"Why not?! Flash has one! And Superman! And Superman is the _greatest_!"

Batman's brow twitched beneath his cowl and his frown deepened. As if he didn't have enough reasons to find Clark Kent annoying already, his adopted son turns out to be the guy's biggest fanboy. "Because catchphrases are mundane, unnecessary, and don't make it look like you're taking the job seriously."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. 'Be back in a Flash'? Would _you_ trust someone in a ridiculous red costume who told you that?"

Robin crossed his arms, pouting, and sulked in the passenger seat. "Look who's talking." He mumbled under his breath, but Batman heard it. That's why he purposefully made the next left turn a hard one, making Dick hit his head on the window. "Ow!" He yelped, rubbing the sore spot on his head. "Why does it matter if I come up with a catchphrase for myself or not? It's not _you_ saying it."

"One, you truely aren't taken as seriously as you must be. Two, this is _Gotham City_. Not Metropolis, not Happy Harbor. You wouldn't have time to finish a catchphrase before they kill you, and I will not allow for such a thing. Three, imagine if _I_ said 'be back in a flash' or anything akin to it."

Robin did, and shuddered. "Yeesh. I feel bad for the poor guy Flash teaches...but Batman, we're heroes."

"No we're not. We are vigilantes."

The boy wonder pouted in determination. "A hero is a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds or noble qualities. Deny it all you want, but that's what _you_ are."

Batman ignored him. "Catchphrases do not define a hero."

"Then what does?" Robin asked. He got no answer. Batman was adamant about it, and his word was final. If he didn't want Robin to have a catchphrase, then the acrobat could kiss that dream farewell. Unfortunately for Batman, Robin was just as stubborn. "I'm going to make a catchphrase."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"No you're not."

"_Yes_ I _am_!"

"No, and that's final!"

"Why _not_?!"

"Because I'm the goddamn Batman, that's why!" The dark knight shouted, slamming on his breaks before they could run through a four-way intersection. The whiplash caused them the slam back into their seats, stunned for a moment, until Robin started laughing. Batman raised a brow at his protégé until he realized what he'd said. Robin was pointing accusingly at him, a wide smile on his face. "Don't▬."

"You have a catchphrase!" He howled in laughter, falling over his own lap in fits of giggles. "The goddamn Batman! It's so catchy! It's...it's like...you can even sing to it! Da na na na na na na na, na na na na na na na na BATMAN! GODDAMN BATMAN!"

Batman suppressed the urge to slam his head against the steering wheel.

* * *

A/n: Aside from the obvious Iron Man reference, can anyone else identify other movies/anime/comics I referenced from in this chapter?

And even though Robin was never allowed to make himself a catchphrase, he eventually came up with the hobby of making up new words. Win/win situation?

As always, thanks for reading!

Next chapter (vote)  
**(note: every vote counts, and please make choice clear. The last voting came really close. If you ****pick two, I will not count your vote.)**  
A. Dance lessons  
B. Pet problems  
C. Wordplay  
D. Idioms


	11. Irony in Action

A/n: Tally counted, idioms won. Democracy has spoken!

The movies referenced last chapter were Hancock, Iron Man, and V for Vendetta. The anime/manga were Naruto and Dragonball the very few that made the connection between Robin's R speech and V's V speech, you made that entire chapter worthwhile for me. Seriously, re-wording that speech from V's to R's and making it match Robin's story took a full day. A _full_ day.

Two chapters ago, I mentioned conducting a tinychat session to talk/thank/ramble with you guys about young justice and any other fandoms we'd want to talk about. Because, seriously, I'm so very whelmed with the positive feedback I've gotten from this fic. I've never had such a positive response from a collection of one-shots, and it's been ages I write something with humor as the main focus. It was a breath of fresh air as well as a step out of my comfort zone.

I'm assuming I'm doing something right?

Anyhow, some of you liked the idea of a tinychat session. I guess I'll tally that too?

I'll stop talking now. Here are your idioms!

* * *

**Wordplay**  
_Eleven - Irony in Action (Idioms)_

* * *

Robin's sense of humor was one of a kind. No, really, it was. Not many people understood why he found certain things so humorous. With their first encounter of Robin, each of his teammates recalled him laughing at one point over something that went completely over their heads. At first, they thought they were dumb for not noticing before. Over time, they learned that, no, they weren't stupid, Robin was just...eccentric.

Because, honestly, was there anyone else on the planet that spent their free time wondering why words like 'non-chalant' and 'disaster' didn't have their positive counterparts in the English language? Let's elaborate...

* * *

**October 2nd  
10:12 AM  
Cyclades Islands,  
Mediterranean Sea**

Following Aqualad's lead, the Young Justice team swan through the pristine ocean waters of the Mediterranean to caverns hidden among a coral reef. Guard up as they swam, the teens made their way into the dark abyss of the cave until, finally, they surfaced inside the hollow cave. They'd found the ruins they were looking for. They were filled with an other-worldly sense of awe. The ruins, given the number of centuries they've been hidden, and likely on-and-off exposure to ocean water and air, were in excellent condition. There was an eerie silence hanging about them, but they didn't seem to mind.

"Hey look, I found Wonder Woman!" Kid Flash joked, pointing to an ancient painting on one of the limestone walls of a ruin that resembled the Amazonian Princess. "Boy, has she aged nicely." He chuckled. Artemis elbowed the speedster harshly as she walked past him, rolling her eyes.

"Shut up, baywatch." She sighed dramatically, peering at the inscriptions on the walls. "Wow...this stuff is incredible."

"I remember watching a few TV shows about lost historic ruins of earth on back on Mars, but seeing it in person..." Miss Martian breathed, floating up to get a closer look at one of the marble statues. "This is _ten times better_ than watching bored old men talk about it on television." She admitted.

"Let's focus, team," Aqualad spoke up. Beside the Atlantean, Robin was wringing the water out of his cape and putting away his re-breather. "We're here on a scouting mission for Wonder Woman. We need to find the relic and return it to the cave before we run into any trouble." They nodded in agreement, but still stared at the ruins as they made their way through the maze of caverns.

"What does it all mean?" Superboy asked no one in particular, also fascinated with what he saw.

Artemis shrugged. "Dunno. It's all Greek to me." On cue, Robin burst out laughing, covering his mouth with his hands as he cackled. Multiple perplexed glances were shot his way. "What?"

"You said...haha, Greek...and we're in Greece...and it's all Greek! Hahahahah...!" He smacked his knee in humor, shaking his head and patting Artemis on the shoulder as he skipped ahead of the team. "Ah, Arty, you kill me! That was a good one!"

The gray-eyed girl blinked in confusion. "I don't get it? Why are you laughing?" Kid Flash also patted her on the shoulder as he jogged past her to catch up with his best friend. He let out a few chuckles.

"Rob's sense of humor consists of puns and really dumb jokes, Arty. Yo, Rob, wait up!"

"But I—." She suddenly realized what she said, and face-palmed. "WOW. Dumbest joke _ever_, Robin!"

* * *

**August 27th  
3:16 PM  
Mt. Justice**

The cave was relatively quiet. Everyone was back from school. Conner was outside fixing his bike and enjoying the sunshine. Kaldur was catching up with Roy, who'd decided, for reasons unknown, to pay the cave a visit. M'gann was happily cooking away in the kitchen, trying new recipes she'd gotten from her new cheer-leading friends at school. Wally and Robin were sitting at the kitchen table just behind her. The speedster was making thinly-veiled attempts at hitting on her, all of which the Martian girl dodged as kindly as she could, and Robin was there to torment his friend and make his flirting more difficult. Robin wasn't dense like Wally was when it came to M'gann's interest in the red-head, and for that the girl was thankful to the little bird. If it weren't for Robin pulling the emergency breaks on Wally, Wally might've run her to China by now for an impromptu date.

Right now, the green-skinned girl was off the hook. Robin and Wally were playing some challenge called the "chubby bunny". Never before had she been so disgusted by the sight of so many marshmallows.

"Chubby bunny." Robin, marshmallow number ten...

"Chubby bunny." Wally, marshmallow number ten...

"Chub-beh bunn-ee." Robin, marshmallow number sixteen...

"Chub-b-bee bunnee." Wally, marshmallow number nineteen...

"Chuh-ee buh-ee." Robin, marshmallow number twenty-two...

"Chuh-bee uhn-ee." Wally, marshmallow number twenty-five...

"Chu-gack, blech, ACK!" Robin, choking. M'gann cringed as she heard the boy wonder spit up the gooey, sticky, fluffy white mess that used to be marshmallows from his mouth on a saucer. He coughed up a storm, thumping his chest a couple of times, and drank a water bottle he'd armed himself with before the match. Wally started cheering his victory only to choke on all the marshmallows in his mouth as well. He spit up some of eat and managed to actually chew and swallow the rest.

"I win!" The speedster slyly smiled, rubbing his victory in his best friend's face. "I'll be taking these lifesavers now, thank you very much."

Robin was sour about losing. "Dude, no fair. You're a freaking food monster. I demand a rematch. For every one marshmallow I put in my mouth, you put three."

"Haha, screw you dude, no way! A win's a win and _yoooooou_ lost! Which means _I_ get _alllll_ the lifesavers." Wally taunted, opening the candy and popping it in his mouth. He smiled wryly. "Sucks to suck, doesn't it, Rob?"

"I wouldn't know."

Wally laughed, tossing another lifesaver in the air and catching it in his mouth. "Dude, I never knew you were such a sore—!" The redhead stopped suddenly, coughing and wheezing. Robin started laughing hysterically. A chair fell over. M'gann turned around, and saw Robin sitting on the edge of his seat, a huge smile on his face as he pointed and laughed at his best friend. Wally was desperately pounding his chest and grabbing at his throat. His cheeks were starting to flush a pale blue. He was genuinely choking.

"Oh my goodness, Wally!" The martian girl shouted in alarm, running over to the speedster and pounding on his back in hopes of helping him. It wasn't working. "Wally, hold still!" She ordered, ready to use her telekinesis to dislodge the candy from his throat. The trio hadn't noticed Kaldur and Roy come through the kitchen, because at the next moment the Atlantean had hoisted Wally up in the air and performed the Heimlich on him. The candy shot out of his mouth, and Wally drew in a grateful breath of air. "Wally, are you alright?!" M'gann asked. The ginger numbly nodded.

"T-thanks, Kal. I thought I was a goner for a second there." He thanked the blue-eyed teen beside him. He shot a weak glare at Robin, who was still laughing.

Roy also saw this, and narrowed his eyes at the youngest in the room. "What the hell are you laughing at? Your best friend was _choking_."

"I know!" Robin snickered, "On a LIFESAVER!" He burst out laughing, face-slamming the table and pounding his fist repeatedly on it in peals of laughter. Roy let out a growl and shoved the young teen out of his seat. Robin continued laughing and rolling around on the floor.

"You are a child." The archer grumbled hopelessly.

* * *

**December 11th  
1:01 AM  
Chicago, Illinois**

**'Hello, is everyone online?'** Miss Martian inquired.

**'You know it, beautiful.'** Kid Flash flirted.

**'Give it a **_**rest**_** already, would you?'** Artemis growled.

**'Good, I was thinking that the mind link would be useful right about now.'** Superboy said, ignoring the petty verbal fight.

**'Agreed.'** Aqualad concurred, **'Great minds think alike.'**

**'Hahahahahah, great minds think alike...and we're all mind-linked. HA!'**

**'Rob...I can't decide if you're a genius for picking up on these idioms so fast, or if you need to find a better hobby.'**

**'You're just jealous because the speed of thought is faster than the speed of Kid Flash. So I'm faster than you.'**

**'You're strange.'**

**'Strange and fast. Fast as the speed of thought. Hey, does the speed of **_**dark**_** exist? Is that a thing? I'd be twice as fast if it was.'**

**'We're not talking about this right now.'** KF deadpanned.

**'It is, isn't it?'** Robin persisted.

**'So, people, mission! What're we doing?'** KF piped up enthusiastically.

**'I'm going to take your ignorance as a yes. You're totally my bitch now. I'M FASTER!'**

**'Why don't we ever leave them behind?'** Artemis whined woefully.

* * *

**March 16th  
3:47 PM  
Smallville, Kansas**

The Young Justice team sat on hay bails in the farm, silent as they mulled over their current predicament. Their mission wasn't over yet, but it seemed like it was going in a downward spiral fast. Technically, they should've wrapped it up nice and neat tonight. That, however, wasn't the case. They had to retreat and regroup. For the night, they'd be staying with the Kents. The humble family of Superman, and now Superboy, were more than willing to offer them a place to stay for the night. The young heroes were very grateful.

"Soo now what do we do?" Rocket inquired, picking at the strands of hay that stuck out of the bail. She lay down with a flourish, resting her head on Zatanna's lap. The magician didn't mind; she was cleaning her wand with the hem of her jacket. "Wait here until the bad guys make another scene? I don't think the League will be too happy with that sort of sloppy work."

"No. We'll find another solution. We cannot allow this matter to become a public awareness issue." Aqualad said firmly. He glanced around the room, seeing how exhausted and drained his teammates were. Kid Flash and Artemis were sitting back to back, the couple resting their heads on the backs of each others shoulders. Miss Martian stood tiredly by one of the stalls that housed a cow, petting the Holstein's neck affectionately. Robin was lying haphazardly on a beam above them, the perfect imitation of a sloth. "For now, we'll all get a good night's rest and prepare ourselves for tomorrow. We need to follow our criminals. We'll use this as an opportunity to get to the source and flush them out entirely."

"Thank the Lord because I am _beat_!" Rocket sighed in relief. "Z, be a sweetheart and get the lights."

"Not without these first," Pa Kent said, returning to the barn with Ma Kent and Superboy. They came carrying pillows and blankets which they passed out to the group. "I know you kids can't say much about your mission here, but Conner told me about your type of trouble. I know you'll figure something out. You're smart kids. Brave kids." He commended them with a warmth that only a grandfather-figure could evoke. Their spirits were quickly lifting. "Just remember to be careful with whatever new plan you come up with. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

Even though he was tired, Robin dully chuckled from the beams above them, pointing with sleepy eyes, "You said chickens."

Pa Kent furrowed his eyebrows in confusion; Conner patted his father (grandfather?) figure's shoulder and shook his head no. "He's really immature, Pa. Don't listen to him."

"Farmers have chickens..." Robin sang in giggles. He started to roll, remembered at the last second he was on a beam, and flailed in a poor attempt to regain balance. He didn't, and instead fell down on the bails behind Zatanna and Rocket. He giggled again anyway.

Ma Kent looked a bit concerned. "Is he alright?"

"No." The teens chorused.

* * *

**January 3rd  
6:16 PM  
Mt. Justice**

The team was huddled in the living room, playing on a new game station they'd won for the holidays from the Justice League. A collective thank you gift for saving them from mind control at the hands of the Light. Currently, they were playing a dancing game, and it was M'gann against Raquel. Conner and Kaldur watched on, rooting for their respective girlfriends. Wally and Artemis were bickering over what movie they should watch after the winner of _Just Dance_ was decided.

They hadn't even noticed the absence of a certain pair.

"What'cha doing?" The boy wonder, out of the blue, appeared over the speedster and archer's shoulders, casually stealing some of their popcorn and munching on it. He was in civvies, but fairly dressed up. His usually messy hair was a styled mess, and his cologne filled their senses. As per usual, sunglasses were perched on his nose. "Oh, no dude, don't pick _Black Swan_. The 'lesbian sex scene' is a lie, it just builds up to nothing." He shook his head at one of the movie options. "Ooh, let's watch _Inception_!"

"Aw, but I heard it was really good." Artemis pouted, tossing _Black Swan_ aside as she considered _Inception_ in her hands. She flinched away her surprise at Robin's sudden appearance.

"Dude, where've you been all day? I text you a couple times, you didn't answer." Wally asked. "You've missed half a day of bumming around with the team. Real team-bonding stuff, man." The ginger then chuckled, "Memories were made, reputations destroyed, dignities lost. The whole she-bang."

"You guys did all that without me? I'm hurt." Robin chuckled, pointing at the _Harry Potter_ collection in Artemis' lap in approval. "I'm not giving any of you birthday presents."

"Damn, and here I was hoping I could mooch off a new phone from you this year." Wally laughed at their banter, looking up at his best friend upside down and threatening to steal his sunglasses. "Seriously, mystery man, where've you been? You're looking pretty dressed up for just a normal day."

Robin smirked down at the speedster, shrugging innocently. "Nothing. Just catching Z's."

"You spent the _entire day_ sleeping? Pfft, that's a lie."

"Who says I was sleeping?"

"But you—."

Zatanna walked into the room, grabbing two soda cans and a bag of chips from the kitchen before joining her teammates in the living room. She was dressed up as well, in skinny jeans and ankle booties and a slinky lavender sweater that fell off one shoulder. She sent a single look to Robin, batting her eyelashes, and smirked subtly. She patted the empty space next to her and offered the second can of soda. "Who's winning, guys...?"

Wally and Artemis exchanged a knowing glance, then looked up at Robin. The boy wonder was obviously full of himself, and grinned at his best friends. "For the record, I totally said that on purpose." He smiled, referring to his silly joke, before flipping over their heads and snuggling up beside Zatanna on the couch.

* * *

A/n: I put a few different scenarios to spice it up. I felt like just one would've been boring. Also got around to adding Zatanna and Rocket. I'll slowly start adding more characters from now on. Also threw in some Spitfire, Torpedo/AquaRocket, Supermartian, and Chalant, cause why not?

Special thanks to **yumisaurous** who suggested idioms! If you've made any chapter idea suggestions, rest assured that I will use them! Think of it as my personal way to thank you for reading :]

Next chapter (vote, **one choice only please :)** )  
A. Dance lessons  
B. Pet problems  
C. Wordplay

Also, to tinychat or not to tinychat? Yes/No?

Reviews are like M&Ms. You don't eat just one. You eat a bunch. Because a handful is yummier. It makes you happier, and makes you want to eat more. Then you realize you have a terrible addiction. And your like "ermahgerd, oh noes, I gatta staph!" but you CAN'T. You're just like "I NEED MOAR DAMNIT-FACE" and expect anonymous people to relate to your tiny-chocolate candy addiction.

...I need to get away from the internet ._.

(what is this real life of which my parents speak?)


	12. Dance Lessons

A/n: Well, here we are. Two weeks late, three new extremely turbulent new episodes, an arrow to the aster (remember that?) that was the horrible news of no season three, and a very close vote of nine-seven-five later.

Damn. How the hell did all this happen in two weeks!?

Anyhow, my recap: "The Fix" essentially was like Superboy punched me in the face. I finally realize just how much the bond from the first team has been lost since they all went their separate ways. To me that entire episode was a metaphor to that. I literally cried. I'm a huge wuss. "Runaways" was all full of nostalgia mainly because of static shock. I watched that growing up, so I was just like aww baby Virgil yay! The blue beetle twist? I honestly kind of saw that coming. What WOULD be a twist was if blue and green were acting as double agents on their own to figure out how to remove the scarab. Now THAT would be sick. And lastly, "War". Glad to see half the team that took a vacation again lol. Great fight sequences. An update on the trial at long last. Because it's only been an entire season, no rush. Seeing Arsenal made me realize we haven't seen Red Arrow in a while. Oh yeah,that's right, he's too busy being a hunkalicious baby daddy while his wife plots revenge with pops-in-law on Artemis. But seriously. Oh, and the last two minutes. So much pain to watch. SPHERE WAS LOST TO SPACE. Did nobody notice that?! And the core to the death moon looked eerily familiar...anyone remember the core in"Failsafe"?

I'm done ranting. Dance lessons won. Discussion about saving Young Justice will be at the end comments.

* * *

**Wordplay**

_Twelve - Dance Lessons_

* * *

Dick was exhausted.

Last night Gotham had not been forgiving. The Riddler decided to go on a kidnapping spree, spreading clues, victims, traps, troubles all across the city. The boy wonder was kept on his toes the entire time, alert to any movement, GCPD action, Batman's commands, and Alfred's advice over the comm link. Dawn was on the brink of the horizon by the time they finally caught Riddler. The dynamic duo broke all driving laws on their speedy ride home. Between peeling off their sweat-soaked and battle-torn uniforms, a quick shower, and covering up their injuries, the pair of white knight and little white prince barely had enough time to chuck back a mug of black coffee before being whisked away to their day life.

In school, things weren't much better. Sure, Dick had finished his homework prior to patrol, the wasn't the problem. The problem was the speech he had to give in his literature class about the symbology of Hamlet monologueing to a skull. After that, the exam in his anatomy class that near made him toss what little breakfast he had. The practical had an uncanny resemblance to a mutilated corpse Riddler left for him as a clue to a hostage. And lets not forget that he still had that presentation in his history class with Babs regarding the first world war and the horrendous battlefield conditions...

Maybe he should have called in sick.

Regardless, his school day could not end sooner. Which, in turn, only made it feel like it was dragging on longer. The gypsy acrobat began thanking every religious deity mankind worshiped when one-o-clock rolled in. Finally, there was only an hour left until he was out. It was taking every fiber of his being not to dose off behind his textbook in his final class of the day: pre-calc. While his teacher demonstrated an equation on the white board, his phone vibrated silently in his pocket with a text.

_'Dude, come to the cave asap. I can give you a lift if you want. New training exercise today with BC.' -Wally_

_'Oh yeah, guess what? Totally just beat your high score in subway surfer in Chem class! Good luck trying to beat it!' -Wally_

Dick groaned aloud, burying his face in his folded arms and pursing his eyes shut. Could today just be over already? A new training exercise with the team basically means discovering a new muscle you didn't know existed and straining it from so much effort. Essentially, a lot of work. He did not want another workout. His body felt like it ran a trilathon in an hour right now. His soreness felt sore.

"Mr. Grayson," His teacher called. The ebony haired teen glanced up, face flushing with embarrassment when he found his entire class staring at him. "Are you feeling alright?"

The boy nodded, putting on a meek and small tired grin. "Yeah, just tired. Sorry, ." With a nod, the teacher redirected everyone's attention to math, and Dick wearily propped his head up with his hand, forcing himself to stay alert. Maybe Bruce could call him in sick for practice...

* * *

A called-in absence? Who was he trying to fool, himself?

That had to be it. Because if Dick were 100% honest with himself, he knew that eventually he'd wind up at the cave. At first, when Alfred picked him up from school, the young teen actually did put a call through to Bruce. But before his foster father could pick up on the other end he ended the call. The butler made no small scene of how absolutely haggard Dick was, insisting that the boy immediately take another shower and get in a few well-earned hours of sleep once they got back to the manor. Again, that didn't happen. Dick ambled up to his bedroom and reluctantly battled through his homework. He then took a long soak in the tub, bubbles and all, and changed into jeans and an over-sized hoodie. Downstairs in the kitchen, Alfred had the kind heart to make him a broccoli-cheddar chicken soup while he worked away on dinner. Dick ate the meal fast, grateful for his first real food in over 24 hours, and told Alfred he was going to bed for a few hours.

He lied. He was pretty sure the butler knew that too.

Dick went straight to Bruce's study and headed down to the bat-cave via the grandfather clock entrance. Underneath his civvies was his boy wonder uniform; he stripped of his casual attire just before beaming out to the cave by zeta-tubes.

"Dude, there you are! What took you so long?" Wally's voice made itself known before the speedster himself, who nearly ran into his best friend immediately after. "I texted you three hours ago!"

"One, time zone difference between us is an hour, ergo, two, I was still in school and, three, I did my homework before coming over. Hi, by the way." The blue-eyed boy replied, fixing his mask on his face and putting away his sunglasses.

"Oh yeah, completely forgot about that. Dude, you look like crap."

"Great too see you too, _Wallman_. Gotham sucked last night; I don't even want to get into it..." He shook his head sarcastically. Then, he glanced around, noting a distinct lack of super-teens and chaos. "Hey, where is everyone? It's disturbingly quiet."

"Haha, yeah, that's what happens when you're not around. It's no fun to torment the gang when you're not around." The redhead chuckled, cradling three water bottles in one arm. He turned around, pointing with his thumb to his back. "Want a lift?" Robin grinned, hopping onto his best friend's back and playfully messing up his hair. "Hey, hey, hey, not the hair! I can make you walk there, don't forget."

"Dude, you're hair is perfectly styled always. It's _windswept_. Haha, get it?"

"Hilarious." Wally gave Robin a super-speed piggyback to one of the exercise rooms. It was cleared of the sparring mats on the floor and the young justice team was there with Black Canary. There was a waltz playing from the stereo-Blue Danube by Chopin-and everyone, with the exception of Black Canary, was spinning around in painfully gradual rhythm to the beat. Artemis was paired up with Kaldur, M'gann was with Conner, and Wally-Robin assumed from her impatient look- was with Black Canary.

"Robin, so glad you could finally join us." The lithe blonde woman greeted, effectively breaking everyone's focus from the dancing to greet their late-coming teammate. Robin's brows stitched together in confusion along with a crooked pout. He crossed his arms over Wally's chest, yet to hop off the speedster's back. "It's a good thing you haven't missed too much yet; progress has been slow."

"What's this? Prom practice? We should call Red Arrow, his is this coming-up summer." The teen joked. Black Canary wasn't as amused.

"After your last covert-op mission, it has come to the league's attention that there are certain aspects that come into play during a stealth mission that need to be worked on. I'm sure Batman, Flash, and the others will have a long, detailed conversation with you all about being _covert_, but for now I've been assigned to teach you how to blend into your environment." She explained, earning sheepish looks from all the teens present. "And as you all very well know, your performance at that gala during your last mission was appalling, so you're learning how to waltz. _Properly_."

Robin grumbled in complaint, crawling off his best friend's back and stretching his arms over his head. "Do we have to?" He said, almost whining but not. One sharp sky-blue glare from the combat fighter had Robin taking back his words. "Soooo who do I dance with?" He asked. They all exchanged bewildered looks: the guys now outnumbered the girls by one.

Canary pondered on it for a moment before finally deciding. "Since you came in late, take a seat by the stereo. I'll finish running through this complete number with the others and catch you up on it while they practice on their own. Wally, front and center."

Robin trudged to the seats and slouched into one. He checked for texts, replying to any he did have. He saw that Bruce called. No doubt the billionaire saw the call he'd made then decided against at the last second. He fired him a text letting him know he was fine. After that, complete boredom. Listening to the Blue Danube waltz on repeat was starting to have a mind-numbing effect on his already sleepy mind. And watching his friends stumble and spin around was initially amusing, then dizzying, and now also lulling him to sleep. He shook his head to remain alert.

What was the point in him attending this lesson anyway? Right now he could be practicing hand-to-hand combat, or hitting up the tight wires. Hell, he could even be hacking into Barbara Gordon's laptop and pretend to be a virus (that was always fun). It's not like he didn't know how to dance. He _did_ know how to dance. Certainly not anything extravagant or fancy, but he was born with rhythm. It came with his acrobat instinct. He could pick up on a dance improvisationally and with ease. That came with both the circus background and now his detective skills.

"Ouch, Conner!"

"Sorry, M'gann."

"Ugh, no!"

"I believe you're suppose to take a step back so we can change direction, Artemis."

"Yeah, well, the floor is supposed to rotate when I want to change direction. This dance is stupid."

"Wallace,"

"Call me Wally, for the love of God! I hate my full name."

"If I catch you staring at my chest one more time, I won't explain to your uncle why you'll have two black eyes."

"Right. Sorry."

Robin stifled a yawn, sitting with his legs crossed on the seat yoga style, and slouching a little more. Seeing his teammates trying to figure out the Viennese Waltz reminded him of another dancing klutz and the days he learned how to dance. Gestures like swaying in harmony to the melody like Conner and M'gann; Artemis stepping up on Kaldur's feet to understand the steps; Wally behaving like a goof half the time to lighten up Black Canary's mood...now where had he seen that all before...?

* * *

_"Master Bruce, this is pitiful." Alfred's voice bled through the crack of the door and into the hallway. Eight-year-old Dick was in the process of chasing some very bad imaginary guys on his imaginary race car down the hallway when he ran past the Wayne manor library and heard the conversation._

_"I see nothing wrong." To the untrained ear, the billionaire's remark would sound rude. But after a few months of living and getting to know Bruce Wayne, Dick learned that this was Bruce's dry humor coming out for a change. The little boy walked up to the door, standing just outside and peeking in quietly. The butler and his vigilante charge were looking through filing cabinets and old documents for something or another- "big people stuff" - and the Englishman was upset about something in the morning paper now in Bruce's hands. Bruce didn't seem to care one bit about it._

_"Of course you don't, but you should. It's unacceptable to have tabloids such as this."_

_"Paparazzi will be paparazzi, it's what they do. Besides, everyone has flaws."_

_"Coming from you that it quite unexpected. Regardless, I believe it's high-time you learned." The butler said with determined finality. He dropped all of the papers he was holding and took the paper from Bruce's hands, waving as he walked out the door. "Now."_

_Bruce blinked in stunned bewilderment. " You mean right now?"_

_"Did I stutter? Follow me, Master Bruce."_

_Little Dick ducked behind the wall as Alfred walked past, a fierce and somewhat scary look in his eye, followed by Bruce. The tall man looked down at his ward and offered him a fleeting grin, ruffling his hair as he passed. He noticed that Dick was wearing one of his leather coats as well as the helmet to his Ducati. Zitzka, the little boy's stuffed elephant, hand a yellow blanket tied to her neck and was sitting in a bright red wagon Dick was pulling along. Amused, he knelt down to Dick's eye level, fixing the jacket on his shoulders._

_"What sort of adventures are the little bird and his elephant up to today?" Bruce inquired._

_The little boy smiled brightly. "I'm speed racer!" He announced, doing a little spin. Now the reason for stealing his leather jacket and helmet became obvious. Bruce couldn't help but chuckle at the boy's imagination._

_"Who were you racing?" Bruce asked again, indulging the enthusiastic child. Dick spun around to reach into the wagon, plucking out some doodles and giving them to his father. They were a bunch of different things around the manor: the trio in the kitchen, or them in the bat-cave, or something related to the circus. One of them was Dick being carried away by Superman and Batman was still in the cave (he assumed the half-circle over his head symbolized the cave). Bruce didn't like that one._

_"The Roadrunner and Speedy Gonzalez." Dick chirped. "But they're too fast."_

_"Master Bruce!" Alfred called from down the hall in a warning tone._

_Dick blinked, "Is Alfred angry?" as Bruce pulled out a pair of sunglasses from the leather jacket's pocket and slipped them on the boy's face. They were way too big and the lack of proportion made it look adorable on his young ward. "He might be. C'mon. After this maybe we can use the bat-mobile to beat the Roadrunner."_

_Dick's smile, if possible, widened. He raced down the hall after Bruce with his wagon. The pair finally met up with Alfred in the grand ballroom of Wayne manor, where music was already playing. It was classical, and reminded Dick of the same songs the circus dancers rehearsed and performed incredible tricks to. "Front and center, Master Bruce." Alfred ordered, smiling at the little boy in the man's shadow. "Master Dick, you're more than welcome to watch."_

_"What are you doing?"_

_"Teaching Master Bruce how to properly waltz." The man informed, getting Bruce to stand in the starter position. The man did so in chagrin, complaining that this wasn't necessary and having Alfred stand-in for a woman was a bit odd._

_"Why?" Dick wondered, now curious. He sat where he stood. He looked like a bobble-head with the enormous helmet on his head and sunglasses slipping off the end of his nose. He eventually took them off._

_"As an influential member of Gotham society and one that attends many parties, it is an obligation of Master Bruce's to know how to properly dance the Viennese waltz and not make a fool of himself." Alfred explained calmly as he coaxed Bruce through the different dance steps._

_Bruce thanked his lucky stars that Dick was there. He honestly believed it was the only thing keeping Alfred from ripping his head off. Bruce was a terrible dancer. If he had two left feet he would've been lucky. He couldn't even run through the basics without messing up somewhere. He was borderline loosing his own patience to frustration. However, Dick's little chuckles and giggles of amusement kept both men in check. After what felt like hours of practice and very little progress, the men stopped for a break. Alfred went to get refreshments, leaving Bruce to practice._

_"I want to try!" Dick exclaimed, long having shed his speed racer attire and just in his everyday sweats. He ran up to Bruce before the man got a chance to protest, standing opposite him. "Show me!"_

_A bit baffled, the billionaire playboy started off slow. "Well, first you have to learn how to count off the beat of the song." He explained and demonstrated. "...So you go __**one**__, two, three, four; __**one**__, two, three, four..."_

_"Count my one-two-threes, okay! Next!" Dick bounced, too energetic to care for small details. He put his feet between Bruce's, latching onto the fabric of his pressed pants with little fists. "How do the feet go? One,two, three?" He stepped about Bruce's feet in a frenzy, looking more like he was trying to do the Jive than a waltz. Bruce stepped forward slowly, rocking a bit on his heels in fear he might step on Dick's little feet. It was a little more than six months that the man adopted the little circus boy, and frankly he still hadn't wrapped a cowl on the concept of being a parent, so to speak. He felt so awkward about it, and like nothing he did was adequate. None would be the wiser if you looked at it from Dick's perspective. The boy was a people-person and thrived off socializing and being with company, any company. The first few months after his parent's deaths were rough on him (the first few weeks were horrendous), but now Dick had become Bruce's miniature shadow. He treated the man like a father. Or at least as close to one as Bruce thought his heart could bear. The man doubted he could ever get the same attention and affection John Grayson received from Dick, God rest his soul.  
_

_Dick tucked his feet flush against Bruce's, following the man's slow and deliberate moves with an unknown grin on his face and a twinkle of joy in his eyes. The pair eventually seemed to get the basic four-step footwork down pat, and Dick wanted to try the steps faster. Despite his own unease with the dance, Bruce complied, adding in the next three steps that involved the turn. They were a far cry from perfect, but at least he wasn't getting foot-tied and stumbling everywhere. Instead, now Dick was the one struggling to keep up. Bruce started slowing down the steps again, but Dick adamantly shook his head no and insisted they keep going fast. Again Bruce chuckled to himself. The kid was as stubborn as he was sometimes._

_"Here," The man's deep voice said, lifting the little boy off the ground briefly. Dick was surprised when his foster father set him to stand on top of his own feet and held his hands. "Like this." Dick's tiny hands were practically swallowed by Bruce's larger, calloused ones, but he hung on tightly and rested against the man's legs as they spun around the ballroom. Dick watched their feet move about for a while, mesmerized with how perfectly they seemed to move (little did he know) then up at Bruce. The man was focused on his footwork, and Dick could help but smile widely when he was caught staring. "What?"_

_"I want to spin **fast**!" He beamed, giggling when Bruce dipping him backwards._

_"You sure?" The navy-blue-eyed man gave a small, mischievous smirk. "I don't think you can handle it yet. You don't even know the basics."_

_Dick nodded vigorously, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" Bruce stopped dancing, and Dick clung onto the man's leg jittery with anticipation. He laughed excitedly, bouncing on his tiny feet. "Go, go!"_

_The pair of father and son wound up spinning around the ballroom together until they collapsed on the floor, dizzy and seeing stars. Alfred walked in on them breathless, lying on their backs and pointing at the antique paintings on the ceiling. At one point, Dick tried to stand and waltz to "I'm a little teapot," but couldn't stand long enough to sing the first verse. At another, Bruce got the completely insane and irresponsible idea to do a cartwheel while Dick held onto his leg. Alfred nearly had a heart attack; Dick thought it was the best trick ever._

* * *

"Dude...Duuuude...DUUUUUDE!"

A shove.

"Yo, Rob!" Robin grumbled, coming to, and pushing away whoever was nudging him with no energy whatsoever. He gradually looked up and saw his teammates sprawled around the exercise room floor. The music playing was no longer the Blue Danube waltz, but instead the local radio station. Wally was standing in front of him, a taunting grin on his freckled face. "Well, well, well, good afternoon, sleeping beauty!" He offered his best friend a hand up from his sleeping position; somehow, four chairs were stuck side-by-side, and Robin was lying across all four of them and wrapped comfortably in his cape. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, yawning.

"Am I next?"

"Are you next? Ha!" Wally snorted, sitting next to him and taking a swig from his water bottle. "Dance lessons ended twenty minutes ago; you've been asleep for almost two hours." Shock was clear on the boy wonder's face, which was all the more amusing to the speedster. "You didn't notice? We didn't even bother waking you up. You were so tired you fell asleep in that weird yoga pose you do to focus. Nearly slid off your chair too. I caught you though. Supes put the chairs together for ya."

"...Oh." Robin said eventually, genuinely surprised with himself. He rarely fell asleep during the day anymore, let alone when he wasn't home. The previous evening's patrol took more out of him than he realized. "Thanks."

"Welcome. Though I wouldn't be too happy if I were you. Black Canary may have taken pity on you today, but you'll have a _lot_ of catching up to do next week."

Robin shrugged with ease, a nostalgic smile tickling his lips. "I'm not worried. I learned the waltz a couple of years back."

Wally shot him an unamused glower. "Oh yeah, and who taught you that? The Prima-ballerina of Russia or something?" He teased sarcastically. Robin snorted a cackle.

"No, why would I learn from a ballerina, Wally?"

"It was a joke. Although, knowing both sides of you, it was probably someone equally as credible."

Now Robin did smile to himself. "The best teacher I know."

* * *

A/n: Surprise! An unexpected daddybats chapter...well, more along the lines of daddybruce. Still some adorable baby Dick, so it's all good. I feel like with everything the fandom is going through right now, we could use some fluff.

Speaking of which... #SaveYoungJusticeandGreenLant ern

From the staff behind YJ, including creators Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti, "the number one and surefire way to get Cartoon Network's attention and have the show renewed for a third season in the fall/winter of 2013/2014 is to raise viewer ratings during episode airings, purchases of the episodes on itunes, visiting the Young Justice page on CN and playing the games, and the purchase of any certified YJ merchandise...aka, the t-shirts..."

Above all else, the above HAS to happen if we want Cartoon Network to take us seriously. However, taking it further, sending in emails, letters, and calling Cartoon Network asking them to keep the show/why they're cancelling the show/how can we keep the show/ "I love the show please keep it!" is also extremely helpful! It shows them how much the fans really care! Yet keep in mind to be adults and not yell at them. Odds are, whoever picks up your call or reads your letter doesn't actually call the shots, that's just their job. To deal with us, the fans. Let's show them we're a mature audience.

Live-tweeting episodes with hashtags #DCNation #SaveYoungJusticeandGreenLant ern #YoungJustice and the attention-grabber hashtag of the week (found on the YJasks tumblr page)) helps. Liking and leaving messages on the official YJ facebook page helps. Signing the online petition going around also helps. But these pale in comparison to what was mentioned above. If you really want to make a concrete contribution to saving the show, you need to do the above.

Links to everything I mentioned here will be provided next update. In three days. promise ;] Next chapter is pet problems. (You guessed it: more daddybats and Bruce galore...meaning more baby Robin.)

Stay whelmed and feel the aster,

-Panda


	13. Pet Problems

A/n: So I completely forgot that there was a vote between "pet problems" and "wordplay" still...my bad xD I'll make that up to you guys in the footnote.

People, I don't know what it is that you guys enjoy so damn much about this story, but all I can say is thank you thank you THANK YOU so very much. Seriously, over 200 reviews? For my silly jokes and not-so-witty puns? Hugs for everyone 3

Here are links you can each explore as a means to help in the effort to save Young Justice. Each of these will have their own links to other ways you can help in the effort. We're not going down without a fight, guys! As Impulse would say, let's make CN feel the mode...in a totally crash way :]

1. Official Tumblr: "youngjusticeasksgreganswers"  
2. Organizational Tumblr #1: "justiceisours"  
3. Organizational Tumblr # "helpsaveourheroes"

These three links have the phone number, email address, and mailing address for Cartoon Network, as well as a dozen other means to help in the effort. **It is strongly and extremely encouraged to call in and physically mail a letter to Cartoon Network.** Why? Because in current times, personally calling in or taking the time to write out and mail a letter speaks VOLUMES about your dedication, especially if its towards something like a TV show. And why is that? Be honest with yourself. Is your first instinct to _call_ or to _text_ someone? When was the last time you mailed a letter of your own personal interest? Case in point :]

They also have the links to the official facebook page, twitter, the petitions, essentially everything.

#SaveYoungJustice (and livetweet new episodes as well)

* * *

**Wordplay**  
_Thirteen - Pet Problems  
(with baby Dick)_

[For the sake of this chapter, Bruce adopted Dick at age six. Just go with it :D]

* * *

"This is the bestest canoli ever, Pasare!"

"Thank you, Mr. Potato-head! Do you like it, Gumby?"

The conservatory of Wayne Mansion was hosting a grand tea party (aka snack time) for toddler Dick Grayson and his guests of honor. Around the table sat, clockwise, potted sunflowers, a pile of different color play-doh mushed together into a colorful mess, Mr. Potato-head, Tickle-me-Elmo, Barney, Gumby, a Superman action figure, monkeys in a barrel that were scattered absolutely _everywhere_, Zitzka the stuffed elephant, and Dick. The snack spread on the table included peanut-butter and celery sticks, carrots and home-made dip (Alfred's secret recipe), a finger sandwich, and apple juice. The oatmeal and chocolate-chip cookies were the first thing Dick devoured.

Dick gasped, making his stuffed elephant shake, "That's not v'ry nice, Gumby! The canolis taste d'licious! Right, Superman?"

"You bet, Zitzka! They're the greatest canolis ever! They're _super _canolis!" Dick giggled as he played, giving each of his toys voices and personalities of their own. "How did you make them?!" He picked up a peanut-butter and celery stick, the "canoli", and make it sound like a flying rocket ship as he took another bite out of it.

"Zitzka and I made it!" The child bounced joyously, standing on his knees on his reach and reaching for a handful of play-doh. "Same as Mama's eh-see-pee. We took flowers and sugar and chocolate and the ice-cream stuff that's not ice-cream," He said, making the dough into different shapes and putting it together like a canoli's supposed to look like. "A'then put the yummy syrups and sprinklies and ta-dah!"

"That's a cool trick, little Robin!" He made Superman say. Dick'd grin widened, and he did a one-flip jump off his seat.

"Zitzka and I can do all kinds of tricks! Watch!" Dick sprinted across the room over scattered board games and watercolors and gymnastics toys to an abandoned jester's hat and ball. Both were the colors of Haly's circus; both were toys of his _from_ the circus. He shoved the hat on his messy mop of black hair and ran back to the table, grabbing Zitzka. Placing the stuffed animal on one end of the room, he took a step back from her with the ball in hand.

"Sup'rman, sup'rman, me and Zitzka pacticed this all the time! Watch!" He beamed enthusiastically. Taking a deep breath, the little acrobat did a series of backward cartwheels. They were one-handed, demonstrating his outstanding balance, and between every two cartwheels he did a backflip. All the while he held the ball in his free hand. After a sequence of four of these, Dick turned on the heel of his hand to face forward, tossing the ball high up into the air. It sailed at his stuffed animal, hitting it spot-on and knocking it down. "Zitzka!" He cried, running towards the elephant. He picked her up and made sure she was ok. "You're sup'osed to catch the ball!" He complained, sitting her down. "Let's try again, okay?"

And again the little boy ran through the routine with the same results. Frowning, he went and picked up his little Zitzka, staring into her shiny black eyes with something akin to frustration. "Zitzka, why aren't you getting the ball?" He asked, genuinely sad and dissapointed. He sat down with the stuffed animal, as if ready to council her. "You're sup'osed to catch ball, Zeezee." He said again, voice soft. The longer Dick stared at his unresponsive toy, the more disheartened he felt. "Zitzka...?" He sniffled, galaxy-blue eyes blurry. He hiccuped, and his hot tears felt cool against his flushed red cheeks. "I want _real_ Zitzka..." He cried, hugging the stuffed elephant and hugging her to his chest.

* * *

As the world's most notorious vigilante, Bruce Wayne always knew when something was askew. It could be something as obvious as the irregularity with the weather, like a shift in atmospheric pressure, to the most minimalist details, like how Selina Kyle's plush lips were a glossy shade darker from the usual berry color. She switched cosmetic brands again...or maybe stole new product...one could never be too sure with her. (The flavor was still the same...not that he should take pride in recalling such facts.)

Regardless, it came with years of training to be the greatest detective there ever was.

And yet, even years of training and a careful eye sometimes missed the _painfully_ obvious. Thankfully, Bruce had Alfred to point out these facts to him.

"Master Bruce?"

"Hn."

"I've a matter to discuss with you that I believe should be of utmost concern."

"Hn."

"And as _intriguing_ as that stack of paperwork must be to read through, I'd appreciate it if you payed attention."

"Hn."

A beat; the billionaire could sense Alfred mask his irritation. Why now, of all possible times, did Alfred choose to speak to him? Bruce despised paperwork, and for once he'd forced himself to jet through stacks of it that piled on his desk. He was making progress on his catch-up work. His caretaker cleared his throat politely.

"It's about Master Richard, sir."

And there goes all his attention to paperwork.

Bruce dropped the folder and pen in his hand on the desk, glancing up at Alfred from beneath his stony brow before he relaxed back in his seat. "What's the matter? Is Dick alright?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"But...?"

"I believe that he's lonely, sir."

Bruce pursed his lips, one of his thick and handsome brows narrowing while the other nearly shot up to his hairline. His dark blue eyes betrayed his confusion all-too quickly. Lonely? That made as much sense to the billionaire as the phrase "Superman is an ass". What on earth would lead Alfred to believe that Dick was lonely?

The Englishman elaborated upon seeing his charge's puzzled expression. "I'm not calling faults out on your parenting here, sir -I believe you're doing a most excellent job after becoming an impromptu parent- but you're not always present to keep Master Richard company. Quite frankly, neither am I. You don't know it, but I do a number of things to keep this house standing over our heads." He joked lightly. "Between the time the two of us cannot manage to give, and the few hour-long visits of his mathematics tutor, Dick has nobody to spend time with."

Bruce frowned. Alfred's words, as the man said so himself, weren't meant to hurt him, but it did. Bruce Wayne wasn't an over-emotionally expressive man, but push the right buttons and the entire repertoire poured right out of him. He felt guilty for not having realized this sooner. Alfred had a very good point.

"I was under the impression he followed you around all day."

"Oh believe me, Master Bruce, for the most part of the morning he does. Eventually, watching an old man polish table after table exhausts even the most energetic of children." Alfred dryly chortled.

Bruce's frown deepened, now a pensive one. He shot Alfred a look, "I'm going to assume you've come up with a solution for this problem."

"Indeed."

"And?"

"I was thinking that perhaps you should get him a pet, sir."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. It wasn't that the thought of an animal didn't endear to him. He was just over-analyzing the option, as he did with everything. It was his curse. Was it too soon to get Dick a pet? What would Dick think of it? Sure, he'd like it, but what did that say to him about _Bruce_? Would he think that Bruce was giving him the pet just so the boy wouldn't bother him? Would that make Bruce look careless? Would he think Bruce was pushing him away? Would it ruin the progress the two had made so far, as father and son (ahem...acquaintances, not quite father-son yet)?

"I...I don't know. I have to think about it, Alfred." Bruce said finally. Alfred knew by the man's tone that he was lost in thought, and this conversation was as good as done. "Right. I'll go find him now and see what he's up to. If you need me I'll be in the kitchen, preparing dinner. It's your favorite."

"Hn...codfish?"

"Codfish."

"Hmph." Bruce snorted, glaring at Alfred's shadow as it disappeared down the hallway. He hated codfish.

* * *

**Donald and Daisy**

A crash down the hall had Alfred running to Dick's bedroom at seven am two weeks later. He was shocked that Bruce wasn't already there, because the man was as overprotective as a person could get when it came to Dick. The butler only gave a single knock's warning before entering the large bedroom, immediately searching for the little acrobat. He was in awe at the mess he found. Dick wasn't the neatest child in the world (is there such a thing as a neat child?) but never in the year since his adoption had his room ever been in this catastrophic state. It wasn't even the typical playtime mess the boy would make. It was a -I-can't-find-what-I'm-looking-for-and-I-have-an-interview-in-twenty-minutes type of mess. Everything that could be out of place was out of place.

"M-Master Richard?" Alfred asked, trying to spot the six-year-old. Dick's head popped up from beneath a pile of clothes. He looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"Alfie!"

"Master Richard, what on earth is going on in here?" Alfred asked, taking the laundry basket off the boy's head and pulling him out of the clothes. He held the boy in his arms. Dick searched the floor from his new vantage point, feet kicking nervously. "Goodness gracious, Master Richard, are you alright? What happened?"

"I can't find him, Alfie!" He said urgently, fidgeting. He tried pushing away from Alfred and get back on the floor, but the elder man had a strength advantage over him.

"You can't find whom, Mas-?" He stopped, his face considerably paling when he caught a glimpse of what Dick holding in his right hand. "Is that a-?!" He stopped when he heard a silver tray clatter a ways down the hall, from a different bedroom, followed by a confused shout. It was Bruce. "What-?"

"Oh no!" Dick cried, squirming out of Alfred's hold. The butler chased him down the hall to Bruce's room. The billionaire looked like a frenzied mess. He literally joke woke up, and was searching his mess of sheets and comforters for something. He was armed with a pillow.

"Master Bruce, what is the matter?" The butler inquired. Bruce narrowed his eyes. He was in Batman mode: a hawk hunting prey. His dark blue eyes were narrowed at his bed. He opened his mouth to answer, but Dick pounced on the bed without warning, diving for something that moved. When he emerged from the mountain of covers, he had two mice, one in each hand.

"Donald! I said sleep in soo-box! Bad Donald!" He scolded the small rodent in his right hand with an angry pout. It was a light gray mouse, some spots darker than others. It was likely supposed to be a white mouse -the one in his left hand was- but both were dirty. The little boy's angry rant was interrupted when his foster father cleared his throat. Dick gave Bruce a tiny, sheepish grin.

"Richard, where did the mice come from?" The billionaire asked patiently, despite scaring the boy a little. It was unintentional. Bruce was just fearsome when he was serious.

Dick held up both the mice in his small hands that were squirming to get away. "This is Donald and this is Daisy. See? I dew-rew a flower on her butt and smiley-face on his butt." He demonstrated. Sure enough, a flower was drawn in pink marker on one mouse's rump, and in green marker a smiley face was on the other. He hugged Daisy, who was better behaved, close to his face with a grin that slightly grew.

"That's very nice, but that doesn't answer my question. Where did you get the mice?" The man asked again, sitting next to his little son. He saw how Dick recoiled with his new little friends, and could sense Alfred giving him the 'I-told-you-so' look in the back of his head.

Dick looked to both his caretakers, his big blue eyes reading them to see if they were angry at him or not. It took him a moment to finally answer. "Outside yes-her-day, by the trash and compost." Alfred visibly grimaced. "They were hungry." He explained. Then, with the world's greatest puppy-dog look, he asked, "Can I keep them?"

Also somewhat repulsed by the mice's origins, Bruce gently took them away from Dick. "Er, not these two, Dick. They could be carrying disease; you don't know where they've been."

"What dissy-easy?"

"Disease. They could be sick and make you sick." Bruce explained, leaving with the mice. "I'm sorry, but you can't keep them. Do you understand?" Dick nodded disheartened, and it made Bruce feel bad, but it was for good reason. "Alfred, could you give Dick a bath? I'll, uh, show...Donald and Daisy...?" He said tentivly, and Dick nodded, but there was no smile. "The way out."

"Certainly, Master Bruce. I'll be sure to help him clean his room as well." The butler nodded, taking the little acrobat to the bathroom. "Master Richard, you do realize that Donald and Daisy are the names of the Disney _ducks_, correct?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you name the mice Mickey and Minnie?"

"B'cause Mickey-Minnie _mouse_ are in Disney. There's only one Mickey-Minnie, right Alfie?"

Alfred couldn't help but laugh. "Indeed, sir. Just one."

* * *

**Coo-coo**

After a number of years of being the Batman and operating in a secret cave that housed thousands of bats, it was inevitable that Bruce have accidents with guano. However, after having accidentally stepped in it, having it fall on him, cleaning it off his vehicles and weapons...the man knew guano well. So when he was leaving for a business meeting at Wayne Tower one afternoon a week after the mouse incident with Dick, fixing his deep violet tie in the mirror by the garage, he knew that the white-liquid that dripped on his shoulder was _not_ guano.

_Coo! Coo!_

With a deliberate, irritated sigh, Bruce looked up to find the source of this new delay. On the ledge of the mansion's crown molding was a pigeon, waddling back and forth in place.

_Coo! Coo!_

It was common for bats to get into the mansion, but not pigeons. In fact, pigeons weren't all that common this far out from the city. Not only because of the bats, but because of the hawks the city of Gotham released to keep pigeon population low.

And that pigeon was too..._clean_. There could only be one person behind this.

_Coo! Coo!_

"Aha! There you are, Mr. Coo-coo!" Dick laughed triumphantly. Bruce turned his attention to the ledge above him that Dick was climbing on to get to the pigeon. Alarm caused the man to act on instinct. He help up on the table in front of him, knocking aside an antique metal vase, and pulled Dick down before he could get to far out of his reach.

"Dick, no!" He said, pulling him down and holding him in his arms. "You cannot climb that high up, it's dangerous."

The little black-haired boy glared at the pigeon, pointing accusingly, "But Mr. Coo-coo-!"

"We'll get him later." Bruce assured him. "Dick, where did the pigeon come from?"

"The roof!" Bruce visibly paled. The roof? Had Dick been up on _the roof_ without his or Alfred's knowing? "He told me his name is Mr. Coo-coo. He says coo-coo a lot!"

_Coo! Coo!_

"See?!"

"Yes, I can see that. That's because he's a pigeon."

"Can I keep him? _Pleeeeease_?" The child asked, puppy-face again. Bruce's immunity to the puppy-face was wearing fast. How was he to explain that pigeons also carried disease, worse than mice, and that it was a wild animal he couldn't keep. Luckily for Bruce, the six-year-old had a short attention span. "Boose, what's that?" He pointed to his shoulder.

"You new friend thought I was a toilet."

"Eeeww!"

Upon finding pigeon poo everywhere, Bruce decided that, no, Dick couldn't keep the pigeon. He and Alfred would find a way to catch it and release it later. Unfortunately, when he came back home from the meeting, he was tasked with comforting a crying Dick. There was a bat flying around that caught and ate the pigeon.

Alfred's argument to give Dick a pet was starting to become like a good idea the more he thought about it.

* * *

**Sunny**

Batman had a love-hate relationship with nights that snowed. On the one hand, it made certain aspects of his job obscenely easy. Take tonight, for instance. KGBeast hired some incredibly stupid lackeys for his heist: they didn't even know better to cover up their tracks. They basically turned themselves in to the dark knight on a silver platter. On the other hand, it made for some irritating obstacles as well. First snowfall meant no road traction of any sorts. That lead to slow-driving civilians trying to get home, slippery asphalt, sand-trucks blocking the road, and other little things. The problem wasn't the Bat-mobile. The Bat-mobile was well-equipped for whatever came into Gotham. It was the city itself.

All challenges aside, Batman made it home at a fairly decent time: two in the morning. Careful to not wake his sleeping ward (whom wasn't aware his new father was the Batman), he crept up from his office to his bedroom, taking a hot shower and changing into his nightwear. He heartily drank the water Alfred brought up for him -he was parched- with a pair of cold pills to fight off his chills. However, he was still thirsty, so he went downstairs for another glass of water. He didn't want to disturb the Englishman again. It was already late.

The man made his way down to the kitchen silent as the night. He must've been really tired, for he felt unconsciousness creep into the corners of his mind already, and he knew for a fact the sleeping agent in those cold pills didn't-

_Squish._

Startled, Bruce took a step back and looked down. He just stepped in something wet and cold. Either he was delusional, or there were snow tracks in the hallway. He looked back down the hall, realizing he'd been walking alongside it for quite sometime. They seemed to be leading to the kitchen as well. How long had those been there? (Had KGBeast hit him in the head harder than he realized?) His posture grew rigid, and as he followed the tracks he was ready for any sort of intruder he might find at the end of them. When he approached the kitchen, he heard the scuffling of feet, and a sleepy, familiar voice.

"Shh-shusssshh," Dick slurred. A chair was dragged. A mewl. "Quiet. Is late." A cabinet swung open. Dishes clinked together. Another mewl. "I coming, Sunny."

Bruce peeked around the corner of the doorway. At the eat-in bar of the kitchen island sat sugar-brown kitten that batted at a carton of milk. The refrigerator door was wide open, the drawers drawn open for Dick's climbing purposes, no doubt. A few of the items had fallen on the floor. Next to the sink, Dick stood on the counter fishing out a bowl from the cabinets. He was in his Spiderman onesie pajamas. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he was determined to feed this kitten, wherever it came from. Amused, Bruce decided to stand in the doorway and watch. Dick was so tired he didn't even notice the man standing there. He clumsily climbed down from the counter, the bowl sitting like a hat on his head, and dragged the chair back over to the breakfast bar. He climbed back up, put the bowl on the counter, and popped open the milk. It flew everywhere as he poured, but he was too tired to realize he'd be caught in the morning. The kitten certainly seemed to enjoy it. Bruce decided to intervene when the simple task of screwing the cap back on the milk was taking more than a minute for the child.

"Did you know you bedtime is at eight?" The man ask softly, his voice seeming to vibrate because of how deep it was. He sat the the bar, mindful of the spilled milk, and draped Dick's forgotten blanket on the floor around the child's shoulders. Dick nodded, leaning against his father's shoulder.

"Is...it's eight, Boose." He yawned. "Not late." Bruce smirked, bringing Dick to his lap and hugging him close. The little acrobat tucked himself into a ball in his father's arms, snuggling close to his chest. "Sunny hungry."

Bruce nodded, petting the kitten. His fingers scratched a collar on her neck, and he pulled the tag up. He frowned to himself. If Dick hadn't realized she had a coller, turning him down from another pet wouldn't be easy. "Did you see her name is Mindy?" He asked, hoping that would be enough of a hint.

"Sood...be...Sunny..."Dick argued. He sat up a little, pointing to the cat's face. "See?" Indeed Bruce saw. The kitten's eyes were so rich an amber they looked yellow. Like two big suns.

"We'll have to take her home tomorrow." Bruce told him. He nodded, sniffling.

"Boose?"

"Hm?"

"I want friend...like Zitzka." The child admitted, and Bruce knew which elephant Dick was referring to. His one-ton pet elephant from the circus he couldn't keep. Bruce cradled the practically asleep child in his arms, picked up 'Sunny', and took the pair back to bed. The billionaire may have been exhausted, but after Dick's little heartbroken confession guilt kept him awake all night.

* * *

**Ace**

"Is he up yet?"

"Surprisingly enough, no. I attribute that to his stake-out at the fireplace last night, sir. He was very determined to not let anyone break into the house. He's still frightened from your last kidnapping attempt." Alfred said, taking his charge's coat. "He said, and I quote," The butler laughed, "Not even Batman can break into the house on my watch."

Bruce smiled to himself, struggling to keep the animal in his arms from jumping away and running off. "Good. Keep an eye on him and let me know if he wakes up. I'll go get the surprise ready."

"Are you sure you don't want _me_ to take care of it? You have the same gift-wrapping skills as your father had." Bruce frowned momentarily in thought, handing the excitable pet off to Alfred. "As I thought."

The billionaire headed up to Dick's bedroom, where he sat outside on the floor with his latest non-fiction read until he heard movement in the room. With a knock he headed inside. Dick was sitting in the middle of his bed, his messy hair looking like a tornado styled it, and rubbing sleep from his droopy eyes. It was one of the rare occasions he wasn't wearing a superhero-themed pajama set. It was holiday-themed. Bruce sat on the edge of his bed and Dick crawled over to him, hugging his neck with a lazy smile. The man smoothed down his wild hair, smiling back.

"Merry Christmas, Boose."

"Merry Christmas, Richard. Did you see Santa last night?"

Dick shook his head, "Noo," Then shot up alarmed, "Did he come in?!" and hugged Bruce tighter. Bruce smirked in amusement.

"He's supposed to, to deliver presents to well-behaved kids like you." Dick shook his head no.

"Not uh-less we say so!" He argued. He was still shaken up from Bruce's last kidnapping attempt a month ago.

"Don't worry, I gave him permission to come in." Bruce assured him, "He brought you something I think you'll like." He said mysteriously. The child's galaxy-blue eyes glittered in wonder. "He even brought more snow."

"I wanna see, I wanna see!" He jumped. Bruce carried him down to the parlor room where the gargantuan Christmas tree was set up. Since it was Dick's first Christmas with them, Alfred and Bruce let the boy decide on it's decorations, and he chose a carnival-circus theme. Among the expensive and artisan-crafted ornaments were a few hand-drawn paper cut-outs by the little boy, of all the special people in his life. There was a stick figure for everyone in Haly's circus, his late parents, Alfred, and himself with Bruce.

Dick tore through his presents with gusto, jumping with excitement at everything he earned. He was even happy over socks, they were glow-in-the-dark! Before he got carried away with his new presents, Alfred rounded the corner with the last one, giving Bruce his cue. Bruce crept up behind Dick and covered his eyes with his hands.

"There's one last gift for you. From Alfred and I."

"Mostly Master Bruce." Alfred corrected, not wanting to take credit.

Bruce glowered, but didn't say anything. "No peeking." He ordered, pulling his hands away. He waved in front of Dick to make sure the child was listening, and he was. Obediently sitting still, Dick bit down on his lip to contain his grin. "Alright, hold your hands out." Bruce instructed next. Dick did, and felt soft fur on his fingertips. Something furry was thumping at his foot in a constant beat, and he felt quick breaths sniffing at his face. "Alright, now you can look."

"ACE!"

Dick's squeal of delight practically shattered their eardrums. It was a German Shepherd puppy. The boy hugged the puppy in the spur of the moment, and the energetic canine pulled away only to playfully jump back on him. Dick rolled on the ground with the puppy, cuddling and petting him and having him fetch balled-up wrapping paper. Bruce and Alfred had never seen him smile so big.

"Do you like him?" Bruce asked, even though he knew the answer. Dick took a running start and leaped at Bruce and knocked him down, hugging him and placing a big kiss on his cheek.

"I love him, I love him, I love him!" Dick gave him another kiss. "Thank you, daddy!"

"What are you naming him, sir?" Alfred asked, warmed by how stunned Bruce was at Dick's overwhelming display of gratitude and affection. This was the second time Dick called Bruce 'daddy'. It was having the same disbelieving effect on the man it had the first time around.

"Ace! He looks like a Ace!"

"_An_ Ace, Master Dick."

"_An_ Ace! An Ace, Daddy!" Tally up to three, and Bruce was...blushing? Alfred grinned. Dick was definitely the best thing to happen to this household in years. And now Ace. He was willing to put up with any mess and shenanigans the pair would get into if that meant Bruce would come out of his stony shell more often.

* * *

A/n: I might do a part two follow-up to this in the future. With Dick wanting to keep another pet as Robin, and have the team involved.I had a few pet ideas I didn't use here because I wanted to keep this strictly young Dick.

Like I said, in order to make up for my slip-up and forgetting the poll last chapter, this time you guys will get to choose who the next team member will be for wordplay.

Vote please! (choose one!)  
A. M'gann  
B. Kaldur'ahm  
C. Artemis

Happy voting, everyone!


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